DeKalb county authorities said Friday that significant progress had been made in repairing a 36-inch water line and restoring service near Decatur.
The DeKalb County Department of Watershed Management said it has stabilized water pressure through the system except around the immediate area of the break on Parkhill Drive. Crews would replace the pipe Friday “and restore the system during the weekend,” the water department said in a statement released Friday.
There are no boil water advisories at this time, but engineers are monitoring the situation, the department said.
The rupture Thursday southeast of the city of Decatur resulted in low or no pressure in Decatur and other area schools. The city alerted parents after 11 a.m. that the schools would close for the day. The Museum School, a charter school near Avondale Estates, also closed, and several other DeKalb County schools ferried children to bathrooms at neighboring schools in buses.
The morning pipe break reduced or eliminated water pressure in parts of Atlanta, Avondale Estates, Clarkston, Decatur and Scottdale
Authorities blamed the leak on a 40-year-old concrete pipe that had previously been identified for replacement under the county’s $1.35 billion water and sewer capital improvement plan.
But this isn't the first water pipe burst on Parkhill Drive. In 2011, a water main ruptured on Parkhill Drive near Glenwood Road, flooding the basements of two homes and causing a huge sink hole and gas leak.
And tens of thousands of DeKalb County residents were inconvenienced by a boil water advisory just after Christmas in 2006 when the main on Parkhill broke, flooding at least one family out of their home.
Back then, residents said they’d already endured several previous breaks. This time, the rupture occurred while the county was in the midst of replacing the aging pipes.
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