Sheldon, Iowa — According to reports from citizens of Sheldon, water service was interrupted in parts of Sheldon on Friday night.
Here’s a statement from Sheldon City Manager Sam Kooiker:
Saturday morning update regarding water main break on north 18th Ave: “A City water main ruptured near The Courtyard on Friday evening, October 8. The issue lasted about 4 hours and caused partial or complete loss of water service for hundreds of customers from Country Club/Nest Avenue to North 9th Avenue – mostly north of Hwy 18. Repairs were made at 11 PM and service was restored about midnight. Thank you to our Public Works Team who worked hard to fix the issue.”
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Update 10:45 PM.:
“The pipe break has been pinpointed and fixed. Team is checking for leaks then start opening valves and filling mains.”
Original statement, 9:47 p.m.:
“Our Public Works team is working, fixing a major water main break on N 18th Ave (near the Courtyard) which is affecting many customers from Country Club Road to N 9th Avenue – mainly north of Hwy 18. We are sorry for the inconvenience and we have all available hands on deck working on the issue.”
Public Works Director Todd Uhl tells us that as they were closing the valve to make repairs, the valve broke, so workers had to turn off an upstream valve, which meant that a larger area would experience a water interruption. Uhl says they turn each of those valves every year to prevent something like this from happening, but with the age of the infrastructure, sometimes it happens anyway. He says, to make things worse, with the kind of break it was, they will end up having to actually cut out and replace a section of pipe to make the repair.
