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CANDACE RONDEAUXAbout 1,200 people in Tarpon Springs will be inconvenienced through the weekend while tests are made.
TARPON SPRINGS - Roughly 1,200 people in Tarpon Springs will have to boil water through the weekend after a 20-inch water main ruptured on Levis Avenue Thursday morning.
The break occurred about 11:45 a.m. in a water line a few hundred feet from the southeast corner of Levis and Tarpon avenues. City workers noticed water leaking onto Levis Avenue Thursday morning and immediately installed a pump to alleviate pressure on the line, city officials said.
Although the break was relatively small, city officials decided to cut off service to about a dozen nearby homes and businesses to allay the possibility of a larger line fracture that would send water gushing through downtown streets, said city public services administrator Paul Smith.
City officials weren't sure how long service would be cut off, but said it would be at least 24 hours before the water is turned on.
"It would have been a tremendous volume of water," Smith said. "We were just taking precautions to notify people in the immediate area."
Fears that the rupture could put area residents in harm's way prompted police to go door-to-door along Levis and Tarpon avenues to notify people of the break, said Tarpon Springs police Sgt. Jeff Young said.
"What could happen if that main breaks is you could have what they classify a Category 5 river here," Young said. "Basically you'd have rapids running here."
Reverse 911 calls about the rupture went out to about 1,200 residents in a corridor along Tarpon Avenue from U.S. 19 to Alt. U.S. 19 and about 3 blocks to the north and south of Tarpon Avenue, Young said.
Residents in that area should boil water for at least a minute, though it is not necessary to boil water used for bathing, city officials said. Water should be boiled until residents receive the all-clear from the city when water quality tests are completed. Those tests are expected to be finished early next week, Smith said.
Thursday's break lowered water pressure across the city, affecting an estimated 22,000 residents.
Workers were still trying to determine what caused the cast iron pipe to rupture late Thursday afternoon, Smith said. The water line, installed roughly 30 years ago, supplies thousands of gallons of water a day to homes and businesses, Smith said. Many of the city's water lines are even older, some dating as far back as 100 years. Breaks such as the one at Levis Avenue have occurred in other parts of the city and come as no surprise, Smith said.
"This is part of normal operation of a water system of this age," he said.
News of the trouble with the water line arrived two days after City Manager Ellen Posivach introduced an ambitious plan to construct a $36-million water supply system in Tarpon Springs. Slated for completion by 2009, it would eventually produce more than 6-million gallons of water a day and hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits for the city. Despite a series of boil-water notices and breaks in the city's water and sewer lines in the last year, city officials contend that those problems should not affect the proposed water supply plan.
"Our budget's in place to address these issues," Smith said.
Police said many people near the break decided to leave the area. Accountant Lynda Vinson decided to play it safe and evacuate her office on Levis Avenue, directly across from where the break occurred. Vinson, 53, and the company's small staff began packing up her clients' files and office computers shortly after police knocked on her door.
"We figured it was better to lose half a day of work than to take a chance," Vinson said.
- Candace Rondeaux can be reached at 727 771-4307 or rondeaux@sptimes.com