A storm drain blew up after filling with water from a nearby water main break on top of mounds of garbage on Montpelier Street in Waverly Wednesday, a public works spokesman said.
The garbage "explosion" happened when a water main break in the 3100 block of Ellerslie Avenue caused a waterline to a house to break, sending water into storm drains, said Kurt Kocher, a DPW spokesman. When the water ran into the storm drain on Montpelier Street, the storm drain was already filled with garbage, causing the storm drain to overflow — leaving a "hole" in the street, Kocher said.
"This is the next big issue—what we can do to fix storm drains," he said, which are aging but the department lacks funding to make the necessary repairs.
Kocher said that the Montpelier storm drain was probably 50 years old but that there are some storm drains in the city that are 100 years old.
The 900 block of Montpelier Street and the 3100 block of Ellerslie Avenue are closed, but Kocher could not say when those streets would reopen.