Water line broken during Meridian work

The Daily Inter Lake

Kalispell street workers broke a water line leading to a fire hydrant Monday, causing the city to shut off water service to a westside neighborhood so the break could be fixed.

The break came at about 4:30 p.m. during the street upgrades on Meridian Road. Workers were installing a new water main parallel to the existing one when they broke a smaller water line leading from the main to the fire hydrant at the corner of Meridian Road and Idaho Street, city Public Works Director Jim Hansz said.

To fix the broken water line, the city had to shut off a water main serving the area between Appleway Drive and Husky Street. The repairs were completed at roughly 10:30 p.m.

Meanwhile, Sizzler kept its food coming when the water stopped with help from Pettyjohn's Water Store Inc. and a lot of elbow grease.

Heidi Dennison, one of three managers, said the water company delivered 15, 18-liter water jugs. The staff had to refill those three times at another restaurant unaffected by the outage.

Dennison said managers and employees first boiled then filled sinks with the delivered water, added soap and bleach, and washed dishes by hand.

"It was chaos for a while," she said with a laugh. "All the managers put in a 16-hour day."

Flathead County Health Officer Joe Russell said that restaurants may continue operation under such circumstances as long as they obtain water from an approved source.