A BURST 15-inch main in Roebuck Street, The City, caused a water outage yesterday, inconveniencing several businesses and schools.
Barbados Water Authority’s (BWA) public relations officer Yvette Harris-Griffith said in a Press release that areas affected included “Roebuck Street from its junction with Country Road to its junction with Spry Street and to several side streets off Roebuck Street, including Pinfold Street and Crumpton Street”.
As a result, the Metropolitan High School and Harrison College were closed.
Several Government offices and private businesses also closed their doors.
A section of The City, including Broad Street, also experienced low pressure while BWA crews effected repairs to the main. Water tankers were dispatched to assist affected customers.
Nadia Gibbons, an employee of Jamrock Restaurant, told the DAILY NATION that although she had not been warned of the outage, she commended the BWA’s workers for their effective response.
“I asked them how they could turn off the water and didn’t notify me, and they told me that ‘the main ain’t warn them that it was going to burst!’.
“But I wasn’t affected, because I started cooking around 6 a.m. and around 10 a.m. they turned off the water – when I was finished. But the workers were nice, they brought water for us shortly after they turned off the pipe, so I got to wash up my dishes.”
A supervisor of Norm & KC Restaurant, who withheld her name, indicated that if the problem were not rectified by today, she would be forced to close.
“This is the third time we had this problem, and my restaurant was here for 12 years. But I was lucky enough that when I got to work this morning, the water wasn’t turned off yet. But if it is that the water don’t come back by tomorrow [today], I won’t be doing any business.”
The owner of Pretty Girls salon, who also preferred not to be identified, said she was “still trying to work, but there is only so much that I can do without water”.
“I can’t do any washing, relaxing . . . ,” she added. “Customers have been coming in and I have had to keep turning them down because what they want done would require me to use water.
“[The BWA] brought a water tank[er] in the area and give us water, but I can’t use buckets on people head. And Monday is usually my best day in the week.
“I am losing a lot of money today because of this water problem. I hope this doesn’t take a whole week to fix like the last time a main burst in Roebuck Street.”
