Residents of one Philadelphia neighborhood say water has been pouring out of a broken fire hydrant for days – even though they’ve made dozens of calls to the city to have the problem fixed.
Water has been spewing out of the open plug on the 4500 block of North 12th Street in the Hunting Park section of the city since Wednesday, according to residents who live on the block.
“We had a fire over there. The fire company broke the [hydrant] and they said they were gonna call the city and they never came out. And there’s been gallons and gallons of water coming out of here,” said Vincent Mathews who lives across the street from the fire plug.
But Mathews says no one came. With water flooding the street and concerns about ice amid the freezing temperatures, he and his neighbors began to make dozens of calls to the Philadelphia Water Department. Each time, they were told someone would come out to take care of it, but the water kept on flowing.
“They’re saying they know about it, they’re sending a crew out to address the problem. That’s been since Wednesday,” said Brenda May, who says she’s made five calls herself.
The Philadelphia Fire Department confirms crews responded to a fire on the block Wednesday night and that there was a problem with one of the fire hydrants. But, fire officials could not say whether fire crews broke the hydrant or if the water department was notified.
NBC10 also made calls to city departments over the past two days -- to no avail.
Our first call was to the Philadelphia Fire Department on Thursday. A fire department employee said someone would be sent out to take care of the issue. But with the problem still persisting on Friday, NBC10 again called fire officials. With that second call, another staffer said it was the Philadelphia Water Department who needed to fix the problem.
A water department employee told NBC10 that they would add the hydrant to their list. However, as of Friday night, the water continued to gush.
“We’re really sad. It’s a sad situation, because any other neighborhood they would rush in,” said Mathews. “We’re very forgotten. There’s no reason for this.”
Water department spokeswoman Laura Copeland said on Friday night that this week’s extreme cold and snow has increased the amount of emergency repair responses. She said the hydrant is on the repair list and is being made a priority.
May says she understands that the weather may have slowed down the water department’s response time, but believes the continued flow could undermine the street and neighboring homes.
“There should be enough manpower, at least when you have a hydrant spewing gallons of water out at a time, that should be a top priority and should have been addressed before now,” she said.
As of 11 p.m. Friday, the water continued to spew from the hydrant. We’ll continue to monitor the situation and provide an update.
Contact Vince Lattanzio at 610.668.5532, vince.lattanzio@nbcuni.com or follow @VinceLattanzio on Twitter.
Photo Credit: NBC10.com