Beginning Friday, July 26, 2013, crews worked seemingly non-stop over the weekend fixing a series of water main breaks in the Pinson addition in north Forney.
There were five water main breaks concentrated into roughly a four-block radius. The breaks affected homes near the intersections of York Street at Bowie Street and Southlake Drive, Southlake Drive and Heritage Hill Drive, and Carl C Senter Street at Woodcrest Way and Forestwood Drive.
City of Forney Public Works Director Chris Metz spoke with inForney.com about the breaks. Metz said the breaks were casued after a short in the “level probe” at the north water tower on FM 740. The level probe tells the pumps when to pump more water into the tower to maintain a certain water level and pressure.
Because the level probe was shorting, it told the pumps to keep pumping more and more water into the tower causeing the water pressure in the mains to jump from a steady level around 55 psi to approximately 86 psi. “At that pressure, the water will find any weak spots in the old cast iron lines,” said Metz, which caused the breaks.
Many residents in the area were without water for two to three hours and some were affected more than once because of the amount of breaks and their proximity to each other.
A new level probe has been ordered and is expected to be replaced by mid-week. Metz says they don't expect any more breaks before the level probe can be replaced. “We have three stages of indicators that we can switch back to,” said Metz. Instead of the tower reading water levels from the level probe, the tower will now rely on a pressure indicator located near the bottom of the tower. The pressure indicator will now tell the pumps when to turn on and off until the level probe is replaced.
Crews could be seen Monday afternoon using a backhoe to clean the streets that were affected. One neighbor said this wasn't enough to clean the streets and it left a layer of black dirt. Metz said, rest assured, “We used the backhoe to scrape the majority of the mud from the streets. When it dries enough, we will use our street sweeper to clean the remainder of the mess.”
Other than sod needing to be replaced, no other property damage was reported.