You won’t believe what happened July 15 in Lacey. Let’s just say it took all night to fix
Five members of the city of Lacey’s water team, plus water maintenance supervisor Ed Andrews, stepped up to the podium at Lacey’s City Council meeting Thursday to recount the event that earned them the “Our Heroes Wear Dirt” award.
In July, Lacey’s water team embarked on a nightmare scenario of water main repairs.
About 10 p.m. July 15, the city’s after-hours standby technician received a call about a broken water line on 21st Court Southeast at Golf Club Road Southeast, Andrews said.
The technician and others responded to the scene, excavated the location and repaired a 6-foot crack in a 4-inch water main.
Little did they know their night was just beginning.
Once the work was complete, the water was turned back on. Suddenly, they could hear and see water bubbling out of the ground a few hundred feet west of their first repair.
They turned the water off and again replaced 6-feet of water main. Then they turned the water back on and it started bubbling up between the first and second repairs, Andrews said.
“The water main is very old and in need of replacement, but for now the immediate goal was to get customers back in service,” he said.
Again, they turned the water off and replaced another 6-feet of water main. Job complete, right? Nope.
This time water began bubbling up out of the trench of the second repair. So they went back to the drawing board and replaced 8-feet of water main.
This time the water main held, but it was also nearly 4 a.m. Saturday before they were done, Andrews said.
“I’m very proud of them,” he said about his team. “This is who they are and this is how they work every day.”
This story was originally published December 2, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
