A Juniper Drive resident woke up to a shocking scene on Wednesday morning – the ground near her home had been ripped out and swallowed up by a sinkhole that emerged following a water main break earlier in the morning .
“We came out of the house yesterday morning and there was no ground behind our cars,” Peri Marr said. “I guess it can happen anywhere, but I’m sure we’ll never see a bigger one than this in person.”
Beyond his driveway was a damaged Juniper Drive, now with a miniature canyon created by the broken water main.
Marr said the eroded landscape stretched nearly 60 meters. She and other neighbors on her east side street and Piñon Drive expect to go without water until at least Saturday morning.
City officials say the sinkhole formed after a water main burst early Wednesday. The city sent out a text alert at 3:21 a.m. notifying people of the problem and that water service would be interrupted.
Utilities Manager Shannon Jones said city crews were working around the clock to resolve the issue.
“It washed out part of Juniper Lane, but we isolated it,” he said. “In the end, there were three water pipes, one was leaking, but erosion damage caused the other two to fail.”
Contractors are carrying out repairs Thursday on Piñon and Juniper drives in Santa Fe, where a water main break early Wednesday washed out the road and left residents without water.
Jones said crews are hoping the first pipe will be reinstalled Thursday night, with the other two completed Saturday morning. As for the damage caused by the breakage, this solution is still being evaluated.
“There were some erosion issues along the road, including the driveways and some landscaping, and I believe mud and water got into a few houses,” he said. “I know this is all being evaluated and again we are dealing with one issue at a time.”
Marr said city workers were kind amid the chaos of the situation, but the dirt road in front of his house was washed out.
Filling the chasm left by the chasm, she says, will take a lot of work.
“When we get ready to go to work, I’m like, ‘Where’s all the dirt?’ “Marr said. “I’m sure some of it has been washed away, but they have to bring tons of dirt to fill that hole.”
This is not the first water main break to occur in the city in recent weeks. On December 24, a pipe broke on Avenida San Marcos. Two weeks later, a water leak occurred in the Hillside Avenue area, according to posts from Alert Santa Fe.
Jones said crews are working as hard as they can to resolve the issue.
“We know this is an inconvenience to area residents, and we are working around the clock to get it back in place and restore service,” he said.
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