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BOWLING GREEN, Ohio — Since early Wednesday morning, there have been several water main breaks throughout northwest Ohio due in part to the frigid cold temperatures.
This affected cities like Bowling Green, which was dealing with a 12-inch water main break.
“The water stopped working, we’d already been in the middle of doing stuff,” Shawn Beaverson. manager at Campus Pollyeyes in Bowling Green said. “So we didn’t think the pipes were frozen necessarily, then looked outside and there’s just water everywhere.”
“All our cars are like underwater and some cars were over the top of their tires filled with water,” Joslyn White, a nearby resident said.
“My car was up to the bottom of the car filled with water,” Claire Osborne, another resident said.
On Enterprise Street near Court Street, water quickly flooded the roadway. According to water analytics company BlueConduit, cold temperatures cause the ground to freeze and expand, putting pressure on underground pipes and leading to breaks.
To fix the mains, the city had to turn off the water. The turned-off main affected Campus Pollyeyes.
“We can’t be open, because we don’t have any water, so it can’t be open,” Beaverson said. “We’re just kind of waiting it out. Hopefully, we can be open in a couple hours.”
Residents nearby also had to deal with no water.
“You need water to drink, you need to shower, you need to go to the bathroom, wash your hands daily,” Osborne said.
The city provided the following statement:
Some nearby buildings lost water in their buildings such as Wood County Courthouse and BGSU facilities. The water main break caused the water pressure in the city water main to drop in the surrounding area. Some buildings have booster pumps to feed water to the building and the booster pumps turned off when the pressure dropped. This resulted in the buildings temporarily losing water service.
City crews closed some valves in the area of the break to control the water loss. This allowed the pressure to be restored in the water mains and the Wood County and BGSU buildings could restore booster pumps to their buildings.
“We’re lucky we didn’t have class today because if we had class, we would not be able to drive our cars to class,” White said. “Because both ends of the parking lot are blocked off with water.”
The city said they were able to get the water main repaired around 3:30 p.m. and the water was turned back on. The Campus Pollyeyes was also able to open its doors at 4 p.m.