A water main that broke Saturday morning is still causing traffic headaches in Cleveland more than 48 hours later.
Chester Avenue is closed between E. 36th Street and E. 55th Street. The city's water department expects it to reopen later this week.
Water main breaks are common in the winter for northern cities like Cleveland, which averages 2,000 breaks a year in the city limits and surrounding suburbs. It is the ninth largest water system in the country with 5,200 miles of water mains.
“January is usually when we start to see an uptick in the breaks," said Alex Margevicius, interim commissioner of the Cleveland Water Department. "It depends on the severity of the winter. The more bitter weather, the more breaks that you’ll get.”
The Columbus area has a water system that is one-third smaller and averages 685 breaks a year.
Both cities said they have 100-plus year old pipes. Both do preemptive work to try to prevent breaks from happening.
“Over half of our capital improvement dollars is focused just on underground infrastructure and the buried water mains, doing a lot more replacement as we move forward, to try to address some of the aging infrastructure that we do have in the Cleveland system," said Margevicius.
The Cleveland Water Department said it is now spending $25 million to repair potentially problematic mains year-round in the area. That is $10 million more than three years ago.
“We are being more aggressive, finding those weak spots before they break," Margevicius added.
