The Guyana Water Inc (GWI) yesterday said that workers have replaced the broken 20-inch transmission line on Church Street and customers were able to access water during the wee hours of Monday.
For most of Sunday, residents in central Georgetown were without water service. GWI had said that they received a report of a breakage in the line on Sunday morning.
“Water was restored this morning at around 3:00,” Leana Bradshaw, the company’s Public Relations Officer said. She explained that while it was projected that the service would have returned around 1 am, the technical crew faced some additional challenges “and wasn’t able to reach the three hours deadline. They resumed pumping at around 3:00 to restore service for central Georgetown area.”
Bradshaw explained that because of the conditions staff were met with and the magnitude of the breakage, the issue was compounded. That, she said, extended the estimated time they took to finish the job.
GWI’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr Richard Van West-Charles, had indicated that there were some challenges with replacing the transmission line due to its make.
“There are two different types of pipes— one British made and one American and because of that, we have to try and ensure we can fix it with the right connectors to stabilise the system,” Charles said.
The company’s PRO further explained that because of the emergency, staff had to utilise both the metric and imperial materials, which weren’t ideal.
GWI’s Head of Field Services, Sunildatt Barron, had told this newspaper that the breakage in the transmission line was as a result of aged pipes and water pressure.
“Most pipes are aged. They have been around (for) more than 50 years…that is the contributing factor why it was damaged…other parts of this transmission line is damaged also because of the age of the pipe and the pressure in the line. We will have a rupture from time to time… we are now in the process of repairing that pipe,” Barron said.
