Highbury Avenue North road closure extended another day as watermain repairs continue

Following a watermain break that left many Londoners without water over the weekend, city crews remain on scene, CTV London's Gerry Dewan explains.

A section of Highbury Avenue North will be closed longer than first planned, after a watermain break washed away part of the roadway over the weekend.

Video posted on TikTok shortly after the break happened showed a pick-up with the pavement collapsed under its front tires.

The break, between Townsend Drive and Fuller Street, closed traffic in both directions on Highbury.

“Our crews were out on site by 6 a.m. to assess it,” Ashley Rammeloo told CTV News. Rammeloo is Director of Water, Wastewater and Stormwater for the City of London.

“The full crew mobilized by 7 a.m. to begin the repair. So, they started shutting down the water around 6 a.m. We did have about 75 customers affected.”

That included the 128-bed Earls Court Village long-term care facility.

“This is 400-millimetre diameter watermain, so fairly large. It feeds a good chunk of the city as a trunk watermain,” said Rammeloo.

Water service was restored Saturday evening. Rammeloo said the deep cold and the age of the watermain likely combined to cause the break.

She noted that the main was installed in 1949, which is rare for that section of the city.

“At that end of the city, there wasn’t a lot out there in 1949, but it would have been supplying some of those areas further out,” she said.

The weather helped create the break and the weather was complicating the repairs.

The original timeline for reopening was Tuesday, but the heavy snow changed that.

“So, the weather hasn’t exactly cooperated for paving. But we do have a contractor on site working on that restoration work, so that will be hopefully finished paving through tomorrow and have the road open for Wednesday,” Rammeloo said.

Rammeloo warned that if we continue to get cold snaps, we could get a higher number of water main breaks.

“A lot of it is weather dependent. 2024, for example, we had a milder winter. We had about 62 watermain breaks across the city, and that’s about normal. We have had years that were extremely cold, and we had closer to 100 or more water main breaks,” she said.

Rammeloo said the Saturday morning incident serves as an important reminder that drivers should wary when water is pooled up on a roadway.

She said one driver tried to continue through, got stuck, and had to be towed out.

Another vehicle was caught when the road collapsed under them as the earth continued to erode from beneath the pavement.