ATLANTA -- Businesses sidelined for a week by a water line break, could soon be back to normal.
Cold weather last week snapped a huge pipe under Marietta Boulevard near the corner of Chattahoochee Avenue. Water covered the road, freezing at one point and shutting down the entire stretch of roadway.
After complaints, that the problem was not being addressed, 11Alive News started asking questions.
Contractors have been hired by the city to tackle the fix -- in part because its own crews have been working round the clock to fix more than 20 other pipes that supply water to homeowners.
Businesses in the area could not be happier that work is finally getting underway.
For more than a week, businesses along Marietta Boulevard have been dealing with torn up roadway because of a massive broken water line.
"The number we have to call is the number on our water bill," said Kristi Anderson. "We call that number and we get no information."
Last Thursday, Anderson and her co-workers captured images of water bubbling up through cracks in the road and out of a nearby manhole cover.
What burst was a 72-inch pipe that carries water from the Chattahoochee River to a nearby treatment plant.
Atlanta's Watershed Department say sits actually not even used in the winter, but there was enough water still in the line to cover the road and freeze for a time.
"We're directly affected because our entire parking lot is shut down and our vendor, delivery people cant reach us," said Anderson.
So why has no one fixed it until now? The city says simply, priorities.
"Distribution lines that actually feed our customers directly we jump on immediately but this being not the case we can take a little more time to really assess what the issue is, and do what's needed," said Reggie Wells with the Watershed Department.
That is good news to workers along that stretch of roadway.
"Thanks to the people in the media they finally got someone out here today," Anderson said.
It also took several days to drain enough water out of the pipe to allow workers to safely get down there and figure out where they break happened.
The city says the road should be repaired and fully reopened by sometime next week.
