As Detroit auto show gets underway, boil water advisory hits downtown Detroit

A water main break late Saturday night forced a boil water advisory for downtown Detroit, just as the annual auto show was getting underway with thousands of visitors in town.

Downtown hotels, filled with auto industry executives and journalists from around the world, found themselves not only having to tell guests not to drink water from the tap, but in some instances had to apologize to guests because there was either no hot water or no water at all.

Jessica Caldwell, executive director of industry analysis at Edmunds, an online car shopping network, arrived early Sunday morning from Los Angles and discovered the water problem upon arrival at the Atheneum Suites in Greektown.

“I was told at 6 a.m. it should resolve quickly but hadn’t by 11," Caldwell said. "My room had only cold water out of the sink and bathtub. Shower did not work, period. Hotel said because of the pipes, and so many rooms, some were getting a water feed and some were not.”

Impacted by the boil water advisory are residences and businesses in the area bounded by the John C. Lodge Service Drive on the west, Mount Elliott on the east, Interstate 75 on the north and Detroit River on the south.

Although water service has been restored, people should use boiled or bottled water for drinking, brushing teeth and washing dishes until further notice, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department said.

Gary Brown, director of the water department, said Sunday that the water boil advisory will likely be in effect until Thursday. It is important that children and the elderly, especially, heed the warning to avoid ingesting bacteria in the water.

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"If water is being used for cooking or drinking, you should bring it to a boil for at least two minutes prior to consumption," Palencia Mobley, deputy director of the Great Lakes Water Authority, said at a Sunday afternoon press conference at the site of the water main break. "The water can be used for bathing and other domestic uses."

Brown said authorities do not yet know the cause of the break, which occurred about 11 p.m. Saturday. It could have simply been age, since the pipes date back to the 1800s, or someone could have hit something with a car.

“I got to the site, physically, at midnight,” he said. “We had a 42-inch water main assigned to the Great Lakes Water Authority — not Detroit, it’s their transmission line — rupture. It was leaking water all the way to Jefferson."

By 11 a.m. on Sunday, Brown said everything was “normal other than the boil water alert.”

Brown said break occurred in a parking lot that services some townhouses, near Larned and McDougall, about half a block south of Martin Luther King High School.

No one in the service area of the broken line is out of water, Brown said, although some Detroiters may have lost water pressure temporarily while repair workers cut over from the broken line to another line,

“Everybody has been restored," he said.

To the best of his knowledge, Brown said, nobody in Detroit lost access to water.

“I’m going from looking at instruments that measure water in the system,” in the transmission and distribution lines, Brown said.

In some cases, Brown said, upper floors in taller buildings may have lost water because internal pumps shut down with the initial lost pressure. In those instances, the building owners need to restart the pumps.

"Our system is working," Brown said. "There may be incidents where people don't have water but we respond as soon as we hear. Out of this large area, so far there are three calls with reports of no water as of 11:45 a.m. That's why I always ask about a high rise or lower units. It's about getting internal pumps restarted. They have automatic shutoffs if pressure gets low so they don't burn up."

A senior residential facility called about the water and the city went out and determined low water pressure was caused by a clog that was cleared up quickly, Brown said.

Auto show precautions

Detroit auto show organizers were notified early Sunday about the water main break, according to show spokeswoman Amanda Niswonger. The break came on the eve of North American International Auto Show's Media Days, which draws auto executives and more than 5,000 journalists from around the world.

“Cobo Center and the NAIAS are fully aware of the boil water advisory and are taking the necessary precautions to ensure all attendees of the upcoming show have safe water to drink," Niswonger said. "We have shut off access to all drinking fountains and have hung signs in restrooms alerting caution. Bottled water is available for drinking.”

Water fountains at Cobo Center will be taped off to prevent use and bottles of water will be provided on site immediately, she said.

Brown said auto show attendees who want coffee will have to use bottled water or boiled water. "But that's not a heavy burden to pay in order to have safety."

Cobo Center issued a statement early Sunday from Claude Molinari, general manager, saying, “Our food service is taking all necessary steps, and all water fountains have been turned off in Cobo Center.”

Ford Motor Co. was one of many companies that planned to spend Sunday rehearsing their programs at Cobo for Monday news conferences. Mark Truby, Ford spokesman, said at 8:03 a.m., “The show goes on.”

Despite the water alert, downtown restaurants seemed to be bustling as always on Sunday.

Mike England, a manager at Applebee’s/IHOP in the Millender Center on Jefferson Avenue, across from the Renaissance Center, on Sunday morning said, “It’s a nice happy atmosphere. We’re busy right now. We’re not affected at all. Everything is good.”

Folks at The Ham Shoppe diner in Greektown said, “We serving and we’re staying busy.”

The owner said he couldn’t talk because they were preparing meals for auto show folks at Cobo Center.

But other restaurants, including Dessert Oasis Coffee Roasters on Griswold and Calexico on Woodward, were reported closed Sunday. The Avalon Café and Bakery on Woodward and Starbucks across from Campus Martius reportedly weren't serving coffee because of water situation.

Nicole Carriere, executive director of public relations at Edmunds, who along with Caldwell, was staying at Atheneum Suites, said when she asked about the water advisory, the hotel told her they have no hot water because the water pressure is low and, as a result, the boilers can’t heat the water. “They just weren’t working properly.

When Carriere and Caldwell talked to an NBC producer on Sunday morning at the Westin Book Cadillac, he told them he didn’t have hot water and just intermittent use of the shower.

“The producer was jealous I had any water coming out of a bathtub, so I could take a cold bath and nearly give myself a heart attack,” Caldwell said. “I usually never drink tap water because I’m from Los Angeles, but the Michigan water tastes good. But now I’m spending the day worried I’m going to have a stomach bug.”

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How it gets fixed

Michigan requires that an alert be issued if water pressure falls below 20 pounds of pressure in the system, and this system fell below 16 pounds, he said.

“Therefore, even though we’ve isolated the break, cut off the water from leaking, have crews there cutting out the broken section and are repairing it as we speak, we will be under a water boil alert until, well, it could be until Thursday,” Brown said. “We’re required after we put a new line in, to disinfect, flush it, do sampling, send samples to a lab and make sure no bacteria is in the line before we can lift a boil alert.”

GLWA COO Cheryl Porter stated the pipe should be repaired by Tuesday.

Any water coming from the Detroit system, in a public water fountain or at home, should be boiled.

“Water main breaks in the City of Detroit, we’ve dealt with it before,” he said. “It’s pretty remarkable that we can get there at 12 midnight, isolate the problem, have the street cleaned up from flooding, salted and make repair. The main thing is to shut off the valves, stop the leaking and make the repair.”

Detroit's distribution system generally has lines 24 inches and smaller. The Great Lakes Water Authority system can run all the way to the suburbs.

Boiling water is strictly precautionary, he said. “There is opportunity for bacteria to get into the system.”

Someone who has consumed infected water may present flu-like symptoms including diarrhea.

To avoid more water main breaks from happening in the future, DWSD and GLWA are investing $100 million this year in rebuilding infrastructures throughout the city, Brown said at the press conference. DWSD plan to start their construction plan in March.

It's a nationwide problem. Between 2012 and 2018, water main break rates increased by 27 percent from 11 to 14 breaks per 100 miles of pipe per year, according to a 2018 Utah State University report, "Water Main Break Rates In the USA and Canada: A Comprehensive Study."

"North America’s water infrastructure is in decline," the report said, noting that the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2017 gave a D grade to drinking water and wastewater infrastructure.

Metro Detroit communities are commonly affected. In October 2017, a water main failure on 14 Mile Road caused a boil water advisory for 14 Oakland County communities for several days.

A quick check of Free Press archives shows such advisories in 2018 for several metro Detroit municipalities, including Keego Harbor, West Bloomfield Township, Livonia and Holly.

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What should residents do?

Do not drink the water without boiling it first. Let it cool before using, or use bottled water. Boiled or bottled water should be used for drinking, making ice, brushing teeth, washing dishes, and food preparation until further notice. Boiling kills bacteria and other organisms in the water.

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This boil water advisory will remain in effect untilDWSD notifies customers advisory has been lifted.

Customers are asked to call DWSD Customer Care Service at 313-267-8000 to report problems.

Amy Huschka and Micah Walker contributed to this story. Contact Phoebe Wall Howard at phoward@freepress.com or 313-222-6512. Follow her on Twitter @phoebesaid. Her work can be found here.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: As Detroit auto show gets underway, boil water advisory hits downtown Detroit