Steer clear: Two more sewage pipes break in Fort Lauderdale

Sewer mains keep bursting in Fort Lauderdale, driving residents away from the smelly floodwaters and toward social media to vent their displeasure.

“Fort Lauderdale, the Venice of sewage,” one resident tweeted.

Two new sewer pipes burst in the city Monday evening, a day after a commissioner held a community meeting for more than a hundred residents about ongoing issues. Monday’s incidents bring this month’s total to six breaks. The most recent previous break was fixed on Saturday.

One new break in a 16-inch pipe is located on Northeast Fifth Street near Northeast 16th Avenue in Victoria Park, where the town hall style meeting was held. The city identified it as the same pipe that broke earlier this month, but in a new location. The other, a break in a 12-inch pipe, is on Northeast 36th Street east of Bayview Drive in the Coral Ridge Country Club Estates.

“There is no single reason for the pipe breaks,” City Spokesman Chaz Adams said in an email. Some were due to age, one was due to equipment failure and others were age and material failure.

“The cause of the two current breaks that crews are responding to is not yet known,” he said.

The city recommends residents stay out of the water, which could be contaminated with bacteria or parasites. If anyone comes into contact with the stinky water, they should wash the affected areas with soap and water. The city warns residents against exposing open wounds to the floodwaters.

The spate of breaks began early in the month, when a 54-inch pipe near Rio Vista broke in two places, spewing sewage into the neighborhood. During those initial breaks, sewage spilled into the nearby Tarpon River for nine days.

Just a day after the second break, a third occurred in a 48-inch pipe submerged in the Himmarshee Canal, north of Las Olas Boulevard, thanks to a faulty clamp.

The fourth break this month — in a 16-inch section of pipe that burst on Friday — was also in the Victoria Park neighborhood. It took city officials about a day to repair the line and reopen the streets, which were flooded with inches of grayish, cloudy water.

The former mayor of Fort Lauderdale, James Naugle, tweeted that the soaked streets were a “public health crisis.”

According to a 2017 study cited by the South Florida Sun Sentinel, it will take $1.4 billion to fix the city’s aging and overtaxed sewage system, which faces additional stress as climate change sends sea levels higher and higher.

This story was originally published December 30, 2019 at 8:40 PM.