Staff photo by Jenna Walker/Chattanooga Times Free Press
Tennessee American Water Co. workers have located a water main break that flooded the Southside on Wednesday and expect to begin repairs on Sunday. The work could take two to three weeks, a company spokeswoman says.Water that was flowing like a river down Cowart Street last week has slowed to a trickle, and crews with Tennessee American Water are busy repairing the broken water main that flooded Chattanooga’s Southside district Wednesday and Thursday.
On Saturday afternoon, workers with Eslinger Construction operated a track excavator to remove the 36-inch concrete encasement surrounding the pipe. The machine’s giant shovel pounded and clawed at the concrete casing, scraping the debris off and dumping it into a truck bed.
The source of the leak has been located, although water company spokeswoman Kim Dalton said she couldn’t describe the nature of the break.
The digging site, about 8 feet deep and 40 feet long, is lined with mud, and a pump was diverting water into a flooded field behind the sidewalk – a field many business owners on the street are calling “Lake Cowart.”
The 24-inch main ruptured Wednesday morning when workers with Klein Enterprises, a subcontractor for AT&T, were drilling along Cowart Street to lay fiber-optic cable.