A break in a large-diameter water main in Mountain Rd in Henderson Valley caused a water outage to parts of West Auckland. Image / Watercare
Water is back on for thousands of West Auckalnders after a broken water main forced Watercare to shut down the pipes, with all customers expected to have normal flow by later this morning.
About 3000 people were without water yesterday and about 15,000 had low pressure.
Watercare chief operations officer Mark Bourne said its contractors completed the fix at 1.30am.
“This meant our crew was able to start the essential process of recharging and flushing the water main earlier than expected.”
Some people on dead-end streets may still be affected but it will be resolved by “late morning”.
Bourne said the water supply would have returned to normal for some people in time for their morning routine, but for others it might take a little longer.
The affected suburbs were Henderson, Henderson Valley, Glen Eden, Kaurilands, Sunnyvale and Ōrātia. The outage might also impact Glendene, Konini, north Titirangi, Kelston and Waitākere.
He said taking all the air out of the network would take until about mid-morning.
Bourne warned some of the water may appear milky or discoloured, but testing this morning had shown the water was safe to drink.
“We encourage them not to be alarmed as it’s not harmful to a person’s health — the water was tested this morning and meets drinking water standards.
“However, we recommend they run a cold tap for 10 minutes to see if it clears. If it doesn’t, they should try again in an hour ahead of getting in touch with us.”
Yesterday, a Henderson resident told the Herald they were completely out of water and it was “frustrating around dinner time”.
Bourne had told the Herald it could take up to 24 hours to resolve the pipe issues.
“So, right now our best estimate is probably up to a maximum of about 10,000 people experiencing low pressure, some of those possibly up to 3000 people affected with no water at all,” Bourne said.
Watercare warned it didn’t know how long the repair to the 470mm-diameter water main would take — but because of its size, expected it take up to 24 hours to restore water.
“Customers living at higher elevations are likely to experience no water. Others may experience lower pressure than normal. If residents have very low pressure or no water, we encourage them to turn off their taps,” Bourne said.
Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Armed police were part of the operation that targeted Flaxmere, Camberley, and Pandora.