A ruptured water main in Lincoln Park that resembles a pipe fracture on Lake Shore Drive last year had city officials searching for answers Monday and crews working to mend what is now a crevasse-like gap in the road.
The 36-inch reinforced-concrete pipe broke about 4 a.m. Sunday and created a 12-foot-wide hole stretching from curb to curb in the 1800 block of North Clark Street. Crews replaced the broken pipe section Monday, but work to repair the road could carry on until Saturday, said Tom LaPorte, spokesman for the city’s Water Management Department.
The broken “feeder main” connects two pumping stations and doesn’t support lateral pipes going directly to customers in the area. The only building that lost service was Hemingway House, an apartment building at 1850 N. Clark, which flooded after the main broke.
Water gushed into several buildings’ lower levels Sunday before workers were able to shut off the flow about two hours after the break.
The new rupture mirrors a November 2002 water main break in the 3500 block of Lake Shore Drive, which erupted in a deluge that eroded the sand beneath the roadway, creating a sinkhole that swallowed four cars. Both mains were 36-inch concrete pipes and were about 30 years old.
LaPorte said corrosion of the steel reinforcement within the pipe caused last year’s break. It’s not clear what caused the Clark Street pipe to burst, he added. It has been sent to a lab for examination.
Experts say that such breaks of reinforced-concrete mains are rare. Even so, it’s likely the two breaks aren’t related, explained Jimmy Doty, spokesman for Hanson Pipe and Products, the largest U.S. manufacturer of concrete pipes.
“It certainly is interesting that you have two pipes of the same age that broke,” he said. “But really, it’s probably more coincidental than interesting.”
If all of the 30-year-old pipes were flawed, he said, “a lot more would have failed by now.”
The rushing water flooded the street and scoured sand from the ground below, randomly scattering piles of it along the block.
Cars parked on the lower level of the below-ground parking garage of Hemingway House accounted for some of the worst water damage. LaPorte said the water damaged 51 cars in the garage.
