By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Dry and windy conditions put the Golden Belt region under a fire watch over the weekend. It may have also had some unintended consequences. Two water mains broke along 10th Street in Great Bend over the weekend, and Public Works Director Jason Cauley blames the ground conditions.
"My assumption would be the dry weather and the cold," he said. "We haven't had a whole lot of moisture so the ground is pretty dry and contracting, as well as the cold is helping things contract a little bit. That shifting of the ground, a lot of times, will cause these issues."
City crews responded to the first break at 10th and Main Street and worked until approximately 3 a.m. Saturday morning. Just a few hours later, water was reported in the area of 10th and Roosevelt on the west side of Great Bend.
"The call came out that there was a water main break due to the fact that there was an extreme amount of water that was coming up at the corner of 10th and Roosevelt," Cauley said. "There was also water coming up on the south side of 10th Street as well."
The same crew was back at it again until approximately 10 p.m. Saturday evening. The crews were able to expose the main but were unable to find a leak. Monday morning, the city was back at it, cutting away street in an attempt to find the leak.
"What they do is they dig down to expose the main," Cauley said. "In this case, the leak must be under the street somewhere, so we follow where the most water is."
The second leak has impacted area businesses, including Sonic and Burger King, which remained closed Monday morning. Cauley was hopeful the leak would be fixed by Monday evening.
"That's the one thing with water," he said. "You never make any guarantees because it's just a wild goose chase sometimes trying to find where that leak is."