KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A cafe in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, spent Friday cleaning up after a water main break made a mess a day earlier.
The tremendous force caused by the break Thursday sent ankle-deep water rushing into Spokes Cafe and Cyclery at Walnut Street and east 10th Street.
"I couldn't believe how quickly it happened, how you go from, you know, just you see a dribble in the water, but it just exploded," Dan Walsh, managing partner of Spokes Cafe and Cyclery said.
Crews are now prepping the space for renovations.
"They're going to tear out the bottom of all the drywall all the way around," Walsh said. "They're going to do asbestos testing to make sure there's nothing contaminated in here since we're a food space."
The 10-inch break couldn't have come at a worse time for the coffee shop.
"We've been sitting here for two years waiting for businesses to come back," Walsh said. "And commerce, the fourth wave of commerce, who's one of our major customers is coming back Monday morning and we're not going to be open for the first two weeks."
Hours after the break on Walnut, another water main ruptured at west 6th Street and Washington Street.
The Kansas City Water Department says the weather is to blame.
"Monday was 60 degrees, Tuesday was six degrees, so with the fluctuation of temperatures, the ground is expanding and contracting, and then that causes pressure on the water main, which could allow it to burst," Jeffrey Haskins, the KC water utilities superintendent, said.
There's also this: some of the 2,800 miles of water mains under KCMO are more than 100 years old.
In 2014, the city began a program to get ahead of the aging infrastructure.
Replacements are made out of material called ductile iron pipe (DIP).
When it ruptures, it breaks off at a single point, making for an easier fix compared to an old pipe made out of cast iron.
According to data from KC Water, the department is seeing less ruptures each fiscal year as the replacement program continues.
Below is a breakdown of the last for fiscal years:
- Fiscal Year '21-'22 (as of Dec. 2021): under 500 breaks
- Fiscal Year '20-'21: 939 breaks
- Fiscal Year '19-'20: 728 breaks
- Fiscal Year '18-'19: 963 breaks
More funding could help this as federal stimulus money is a possible source down the road.
"They have a plan in place, but the infrastructure is just very old and if we don't replace it, if we don't invest in it, it will multiply in terms of the cost of this," Walsh said.
