When Elmhurst Public Works Employees Asked for a Break, this Was Not What They Had in Mind

Residents on the 400 block of Hawthorne Avenue were in for an unpleasant surprise when they got home from work Thursday.

As if the mountains of snow piled all around their homes aren’t enough to navigate, a small geyser had erupted in the middle of their street, causing the pavement to buckle and rise up.

A resident called police at about 2 p.m. to report the break.

An officer on the scene commented, “It’s a real gusher.”

Water bubbled out of the middle of Hawthorne for at least a couple of hours.

It is the sixth water main break in Elmhurst in the past few days, said public works employee Chris Kragel. Four of those breaks happened Tuesday night on the north side of town, around the West Avenue, Lake Street and Oaklawn areas, he said. Those breaks were caused by someone hitting a fire hydrant with their car, causing a surge in water pressure. The Hawthorne break probably was caused by bitter cold and aging pipes, which isn't uncommon, he said.

 “I don’t think the snow has anything to do with it,” Kragel said. “Whenever they want to pop, they pop. It’s definitely aging (of the pipes).”

Kragel was waiting for other public works crews to show up at about 2:30 p.m., but the department has its hands full dealing with other storm-related problems, including those other water main breaks, he said.

“We’ll put it on our list, barricade this off so people can’t get through,” he said. “We’ll have to call JULIE, obviously, so that’s two hours right off the bat.”

JULIE stands for Joint Utility Locating Information for Excavators.

In the mean time, he estimated some 40,000 to 50,000 gallons of water would spill onto Hawthorne before the water could be turned off.

“We’ll probably get a crew down here (soon) to at least throttle it down,” he said.

He wasn’t sure how long residents would be without water, or how long the repair would take, but there will be quite a bit of work involved. He said the breaks on the north end of town are probably more extensive, but this one “is causing more problems” in terms of street damage.

“Depending on what the problem is, just looking at the severity of the leak, we might end up cutting pipe,” he said. “In terms of it lifting up the street, we’ll have to core that out and put stone in there (to repair the road).”

Any ice that forms from the water will be removed, he said.

“We have salt, we’ll get it melted. When we’re all done, it will be all good,” he said.