A broken 8-inch water main near Ottawa Trail and Rock Springs Road in Stonecrest knocked out service for part of the neighborhood starting late Wednesday afternoon, sending crews scrambling through the night and into the next day to get water flowing again. By Thursday evening, the fix was in and pressure was back on, but not before residents spent the better part of two days without reliable running water.
Crews Race to Patch the Break
According to WSB-TV, crews were working to repair the broken main in the area of Ottawa Trail and Rock Springs Road, with the outage shutting off water for a stretch of the DeKalb County neighborhood. The station reported there was no boil-water advisory in effect while repairs were underway. A separate report from Decaturish noted that DeKalb County Watershed responded to the report on Oct. 21 at the corner of Rock Springs Road, though that account spelled the cross street “Ottaway Trail” rather than Ottawa Trail.
The county completed repairs around 5 p.m. Thursday, Decaturish reported. Not long after, the news turned good for anxious residents: water pressure was fully restored shortly after 6 p.m. and no outages remained, according to Atlanta News First. The DeKalb County Department of Watershed Management had reported that crews completed repairs to the main, which had interrupted service for some customers and a school, as covered by 11Alive.
Bottled Water and Discoloration Warnings
While repairs dragged on, the county set up bottled-water pickup locations for residents dealing with the disruption. Decaturish listed two spots: the intersection of Ottawa Trail and Winslow Crossing, and Fairington Elementary School at 5505 Phillip Bradley Drive in Stonecrest. WSB-TV separately reported that bottled water was being handed out for affected customers at 3198 Ottawa Trail.
Even after pressure returned, officials warned the water might not look quite right right away. Customers in the affected area could see discolored water and were encouraged to run faucets both inside and outside their homes or businesses to help clear out the internal plumbing, per the same Atlanta News First report.
Part of a Larger Pattern Across DeKalb
The Stonecrest break is only the latest in a string of water-main failures across DeKalb County this year. Just a week earlier, a break in Belvedere Park closed Midway Road and cut water service to homes, according to Atlanta News First. That 6-inch main was shut off around 2:30 a.m. and repaired by around 1 p.m., though the rupture caused the pavement on Midway Road near Memorial Drive to crack and buckle.
County officials have repeatedly pointed to the age of DeKalb's pipe network as the root problem. DeKalb County CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson said earlier this year that “Freezing temperatures and aging pipes are a recipe for disaster,” after crews worked a 30-inch main break along Clairmont Road and another break along North Druid Hills Road, both reported by Atlanta News First around the same time. A proposed roughly 6% water-rate increase through 2027, meant to help strengthen the water system countywide, saw its vote postponed, the outlet noted.
In Brookhaven, officials have said much of the trouble traces back to lines installed in the 1950s and 1960s that are old, too small and beyond their expected lifespan, as reported by WSB-TV. The county has begun replacing nearly 6,600 linear feet of aging water lines there, work expected to affect roughly 250 homes over six months, as part of DeKalb's $4 billion capital improvement program. A nearby break on Dresden Drive required emergency repairs and temporary steel plates over the roadway, the same report noted.
