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Chesapeake High School in Baltimore County closed due to water main break

Posted at 7:06 AM, Sep 06, 2016
and last updated 2016-09-06 18:06:16-04

Chesapeake High School in Baltimore County will be closed Tuesday due to a water main break.

Baltimore County Public Schools tweeted the school closure.

The Baltimore Department of Public Works reported a 12-inch water main break at 1800 block Turkey Point Road in Essex.

Chesapeake High School is one of hundreds of services without water, officials said. This includes two businesses.

"Normally we make about $2,000 on a Tuesday," Laid Back Lenny's Bar Owner Leonard Banack said.

Banack says Tuesday is a big night because they have a special on their wings. The hangout is also a Ravens Roost and is often crowded with local workers during the lunch hour.

But Tuesday at noon, the bar stools sat silently on top of the tables.

Banack said he's the central hub of communication in the neighborhood when something like a water main break happens. This time the problem was just steps away from the front of the bar.
 
"It's about as big as a 55 gallon drum," Neighbor Al Miller said, describing the hole filled with mud and water where the break happened.
 
Of the hundreds without water, some neighbors are resorting to their pool to get through the day. 
 
"I have bottled water that I can use for coffee and drinks and things and if I need water for the necessities, toilet and so on, I can just dip into my swimming pool," Miller said has a bucket they'll use to haul water inside and dump into the toilet.
 
ABC 2 saw several neighbors with water bottles, hauling them inside or bringing them out to their car.
 
While this particular break happened sometime before 3 a.m., neighbors say the problem is much bigger.
 
"The infrastructure does need fixing but they can't do it all at once, I guess they just do patch work when they can when these things get broke," Neighbor Jeff Dillon said.
 
Crews work to fix a few feet of pipe each time it breaks, but that's a drop in the bucket for a system that has more than 25 hundred miles of pipe.
 
This particular pipe is cast iron and was placed back in the 1950's. The rust was cleaned out and it was lined with concrete in 1985.

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