The water is back on for residents of an Alexandria, Virginia, community who went nearly three days without after a private water line in the area was damaged.
The water outage was in the 5300 block of Duke Street at the London Park Towers apartment complex, which is home to hundreds of residents.
A spokesperson for Kay Apartment Communities, which owns the complex, told WTOP that as of Thursday afternoon, residents have been told what they need to do ahead of any water testing in the coming days.
“While concluding the annual fire hydrant testing on Tuesday morning by the City of Alexandria Fire Department, a water main at London Park Towers Apartments ruptured in multiple locations. This was an unexpected and unfortunate complication to a test that has been completed annually for many years,” a spokesperson wrote in an email to WTOP.
A spokeswoman for Virginia American Water confirmed the restoration, adding that residents will need to boil water used for drinking or preparing food. The boil water advisory for the building will be lifted when testing shows that water meets safety standards, the spokeswoman said.
“Virginia American Water, along with the City of Alexandria, [has] continued to offer assistance and guidance to London Park Towers for flushing and water quality testing to ensure they are done properly,” the spokeswoman told WTOP in an email.
Earlier Thursday morning, as residents entered their third day without running water, the Alexandria Fire Department was on the scene handing out bottled water.
One resident, who identified himself as “D.C.,” said that the only communication he has received is an email from the apartment complex telling him a water main break caused the problem, but it didn’t offer a timeline for the repairs.
“It’s a problem because you can’t really use your bathroom, you can’t brush your teeth, you can’t take a shower,” he said.
Even though the outage was caused by a private water main break and is not a Virginia American Water line, the utility worked to help the owner make repairs and offered help with providing an alternate source of drinking water, the spokeswoman said.
Crews were on the scene Thursday morning and working on a huge hole dug in the parking lot.
On Wednesday, the only source of water for residents was the fire hydrants. The hydrants were opened up as people brought buckets out to get water for their toilets.
Alexandria’s Office of Emergency Management tweeted that residents could catch a shuttle to Patrick Henry Rec Center to get water and use the bathroom facilities.
WTOP’s Jack Moore and Ivy Lyons contributed to this report.
