Teamwork averts sewer break from an environmental disaster
It surely seems a non sequitur to compare repair of a broken sewer main to a choreographed ballet. But listening to Betty Anne Rogers, director of the Warwick Sewer Authority, the music was the only thing missing from the discovery of a sink hole on West Shore Road mid-morning Wednesday to fully restoring sewer service in the early morning hours Thursday.
“They did a fabulous job. Like a fine oiled machine,” she said Thursday afternoon.
A sink hole about two feet wide and two feet deep was the prelude to the symphony to follow. Police diverted traffic to the middle lane of West Shore Road not far from the Islander Restaurant as city crews sought to determine the possible cause to the hole that kept growing.
“We have a forced main (a 12-inch pipe carrying waste water from the Oakland Beach pumping station to a gravity line in Sandy Lane more than a mile and a half away) in the area,” Rogers said. That was all the department needed to know.