Friday March 29th, 2024 8:28AM

Demorest crews working to repair broken water main under Ga. 365 near Mt. Airy

MT. AIRY – Demorest Water Department personnel will work into the night to repair a broken water main that lost about a half-million gallons of water a day between Friday night and Wednesday afternoon.

That break occurred under Ga. 17/Ga. 365/U.S. 123 just past Tommy Irvin Road at Tom Arrendale Interchange and was located Wednesday afternoon.

“One of our water crew was in that particular location checking valves and saw the water in the ditch,” said Mayor Rick Austin.

The water department employee checked the water he was seeing.

“It’s my understanding that there was a little bit of flow there when there really shouldn’t have been any flow, and that’s really how they located it,” Austin said. “It’s just out of sheer dogged determination and a continued persistence to try to find it. That happened shortly after noon today.”

Demorest Water Department employees have worked virtually around the clock since Friday night, Austin said.

“I think you can’t say enough about those guys,” Austin said. “They have worked with a persistence most people would never understand. Since Friday evening, they put in over 40 hours of overtime in addition to their normal work hours. Most of them are going without much rest at all in their pursuit of this thing. They’ve been over a tremendous number of miles, sometimes over very rugged terrain, trying to locate the source of this leak.”

Since soon after the magnitude of the water loss was discovered after the level of water in the Dicks Hill Parkway tank began to drop Friday night, Demorest has been using water purchased from Toccoa to augment its supply.

“That water system interconnect was done when the county [Habersham] had the water system and then the city took that water system over,” Austin said. “When you have an event like this, it just illustrates the importance of having interconnection and multiple sources from multiple directions of water to feed.”

Because the broken pipe was located inside a sleeve, the integrity of Ga. 365 does not appear to degraded, Austin said.

Austin said he is extraordinarily proud of the city’s water department and their dedication to the city and its water customers.

Barring any complications, Demorest officials say the repairs should be completed overnight.

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  • Associated Tags: water main break, City of Demorest, Demorest Water System, Mayor Rick Austin, water leak, Demorest Water Department
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