Update 11:25 am, Oct. 25, 2022: Boil water advisory lifted, San Jose Water officials said Monday.
Update 5:22pm, Oct. 21, 2022: Area under boil-water advisory.
Utility officials said Monday evening they had lifted a boil water advisory for Los Gatos residents affected by a service outage to 577 customers.
Fresh water flows were shut off after a digging crew struck a main around noon Thursday in the 100 block of Villa Avenue near Los Gatos High School that was set to be replaced, according to San Jose Water officials.
The break happened when a piece of heavy equipment nicked the old transmission pipe, said Sharon Whaley, a utility spokesperson.
“We are replacing a 16-inch water main, originally installed in 1946,” she said Friday, adding the shut-off was required because it’s a high-pressure pipeline. “It can’t just be throttled back. This was not planned, so notification to customers could not happen in advance.”
Repair teams worked through the night to solve the problem, she added.
Distribution officials with the utility reported workers tried to put a clamp on the mid-20th century asbestos-and-cement pipe. But that didn’t work, so they moved onto Plan B—which involved bringing in a different set of equipment.
On Friday, around 8am, SJ Water projected they’d have service restored in about two hours.
“Unfortunately, the pipe was damaged more than originally expected,” a SJ Water spokesperson told affected customer Rick Van Hoesen. “A different repair approach was tried and did not work.”
Van Hoesen said he didn’t get this response until more than 18 hours after the service disruption began.
SJ Water officials said they expected to have service back up-and-running by 6pm Friday.
“We apologize for the inconvenience,” Whaley told the Los Gatan. “It has just been a very difficult repair. Our crews have been there nonstop, but there have been estimated repair times for the restoral of service that have slipped.”
San Jose Water said all customers were “restored” by 3:30pm Friday, although the utility noted it would take longer to actually get water flowing through the system properly.
Officials issued a boil water advisory and utility representatives went door-to-door delivering bottled water. Cases of bottled water were given out from an outdoor distribution point that was staffed 24/7.
The Villa Avenue main replacement project is just one section of the approximately 24 miles of water pipelines that are upgraded by the utility each year.
