Calls for help with burst pipes pour in across Fort Worth

By Elizabeth Campbell and Mitch Mitchell in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Firefighters were swamped with calls Saturday from businesses and apartment complexes where frigid temperatures burst water pipes. Most of the 147 automatic alarm or special-duty service calls from 2 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. were related to broken pipes, said Tim Hardeman, a Fire Department spokesman. On a typical day, the department records 15 to 20 such calls.

“Right now, this is overloading our resources,” Hardeman said.

When the department receives such calls, firefighters ordinarily shut off the water and use special vacuums to clean up the mess. However, there were too many calls Saturday for that, he said.

“If your pipes burst, shut off the water and call a private company,” Hardeman recommended.

Those taking that advice overwhelmed some plumbers. Carol Talbot, a dispatcher at Fort Worth-based Master Repair Plumbing, said she has never seen a busier Saturday.

“Normally on a Saturday, we’ll get five or six calls all day,” she said. “Today we got at least 30.”

Paul Snipes, a plumber with Master Repair, said the majority of the residential repairs he worked on had to do with copper pipes bursting because of expansion caused by freezing water.

Many of the leaking pipes were in attics and had been rerouted to bypass earlier leaks, said Snipes, 49. He replaced them with PEX tubing, a layered or cross-linked pipe made of polyethylene, which expands under pressure from freezing water and regains its original shape after the ice has melted and the pressure abates, the plumber said.

“They’ve been using it up north for years,” Snipes said. “When copper got to be expensive, they started using it down here.”

A posh condominium on the outskirts of downtown was among those that triggered a call to the Fire Department. At least one pipe burst inside the vacant unit in the 400 block of Mills Street, valued by the Tarrant Appraisal District at $525,000, causing water to stream out the attached garage.

“It’s just the nature of the weather,” said a neighbor, who refused to be further identified.

Saturday’s low was 13 degrees, one degree shy of a record and the coldest since Feb. 8, 1996, when it was 8 degrees, said Jennifer Dunn, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth. By 2 p.m., the mercury had risen to 34 degrees, ending a 59-hour period of below-freezing readings. It stayed above freezing for more than four hours in the Metroplex, with the high reaching 36, meteorologists said. Today should see highs in the lower 40s, and Monday should warm to the lower 50s, Dunn said. But today’s lows are expected to be in the mid- to upper teens, with 17 degrees possible for the region, she said.

“Any water that’s on the ground [Saturday] night could freeze by morning,” Dunn said.

Although many leaks were plugged Saturday, there may be new ones today.