The City of Harlem experienced a major water break last Monday that left residents without water for nearly two and a half days. The leak was first discovered on Monday, January 30 at approximately 8:30 in the morning. A six man crew worked tirelessly throughout the day and night to first find the source of the leak and then to finally repair it. When all was said and done water was able to be turned back on at around 8:00 pm Wednesday night.

Mayor, Kim Hansen couldn't speak highly enough the city employees, "I can't say enough about my crew. Them guys that first night, they went 36 hours straight. I finally had to shut them down. I wanted them to go home for 6-8 hours and get some rest, but they were right back the next morning. They didn't want to stop and really wanted to keep going." In the time the crew spent searching for the break and repairing it Hansen stated that the City did the best they could to assist the residents with their water needs, "We were supplying the city residents water as much as possible. We would schedule certain times for 45 minutes to an hour to turn the water back on so people could better prepare for it being off and we did our best to do what we could for the residents. It was cold, they couldn't have found a colder day to do it.

Dale Cornell, Public Works Director for the City of Harlem assessed the situation, "We found the break about 8:30 Monday morning on the south side of main street, the water was coming up in the middle of a lot. I always assumed that the Main was on the south side so we dug down and found an old abandoned water line that was dry." Hitting a dead end Cornell made a choice, "We turned on the water to see again were it may be coming from and the water started coming up on the north side in a phone fiber optics box that was on the ground."

The break was a mystery, "Out in the middle of the lot there was such a large amount of water coming out that we knew it was a main and not just a service line so we had to shut the whole city down." Cornell said the crew's next steps were challenging, "It followed the fiber optic line and came out the box, so we dug down by the box and soon found dry ground. We started digging down the line until we found a vein of water, we hunted around and soon realized that the Main was on the north side of the street. Finally we found a water vein and began digging down through five feet of frost to get the water main.

Cornell was appreciative of some neighbourly help, "Pike Construction was amazing, they were able to come down and help us out, cold hard digging and they had all the tools to get the job done." Cornell echoed the Mayors sentiment about doing their best to serve the residents, "We did our best to try to accommodate people as best we could. It was taking so long that we decided to schedule times to get water turned on so people can get better prepared for no water. We couldn't leave it on because we were losing so much water and I didn't want to make things even harder at the job site."

Crews located the break Wednesday evening, "We finally got down to it about 6 pm Wednesday night. We found a cast iron pipe that had a rock hole in it about the size of a fist. We put a band on it and were able to get the water turned back on Wednesday night." Cornell concluded by adding, "There is no boil water order in place at this time, everything is good to go." The City of Harlem is planning on doing work on the main line on central and will install valves that will allow the city to shut down sections of the town versus the entire system.

Four City of Harlem employees and two workers from Pike Construction worked diligently to find and make repairs, "I would put my crew up with any in the state," said Hansen after they got water flowing again.