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Old pipe bursts, floods three Main Avenue businesses

FPUD paying for the damage

Three downtown Fallbrook businesses were met with an unwelcome surprise one Friday morning a few weeks ago – a burst pipe left all three with varying amounts of flood damage.

Jamie Mathieu, owner of Jewelry Connection at 101 N. Main Ave, said he arrived at the store the morning of Friday, Feb. 26, to find quite the commotion.

"We came in and we noticed a bunch of debris in the parking lot," he said.

Mathieu noticed a Fallbrook Public Utility District crew was in the area, and that's when he was told what happened.

"There was a main line that broke," he said. "And with all the paving that's been going on in town, they repaved the alley behind the store and in doing so they covered the storm drains, so it was kind of a perfect storm."

Much of Jewelry Connection was flooded as a result, leaving damages that Mathieu said are still being added up but likely will have "lots of zeroes" – damages that FPUD, fortunately, is paying for, the utility district confirmed to Village News in a statement.

According to FPUD, the pipeline break was reported about 11:20 p.m. the night before, on Thursday, Feb. 25.

"A crew member was on site, shutting down the pipe and making repairs just before midnight. By the time the second crew member arrived, the leak was mostly shut down," according to a statement from FPUD. "A team of crew members began repair work on the six-inch pipeline in the morning."

The utility district said that the paving that was going on in the alleyway behind Jewelry Connection and other businesses was being done by the San Diego County Department of Public Works.

"It was a routine paving project," according to FPUD's statement. "It is standard procedure to cover the storm drains when paving to keep sediment, pavement and pollution out of the storm drains. It was an unfortunate coincidence that the storm drains were covered when the pipeline broke."

Jennifer Paprock, who owns JP Framing in the back of Brandon Gallery, next door to Jewelry Connection, said she had severe damage as well.

"I came in Friday morning at 10 o'clock and there was about two to three inches of water in my whole area," she said. "I lost museum glass, which was like 500 dollars for a box. All my moulding about two feet up is warped ... everything that's in here that touches the floor is a total loss."

She said the restoration company that FPUD hired to fix the damage had worked quickly, though.

"They came in and did the floors and resealed and sanitized everything," Paprock said. "This last Friday (March 5) they came in and put everything back."

Her son worked quickly, too – she said he already built her a new table on Saturday, March 6, to replace her old one that had become wobbly from water damage.

And of the affected shop owners, Leslie Sommers was the luckiest – a slight slope in her back room prevented water from getting into the front of her store.

She said she was in San Francisco when the flooding happened, and employee Juleen Ruttan was the one who came in to open and found what happened.

The water, Ruttan said, "went over the top of my feet."

Sommers said the only flood casualties were some clothing being stored in the back, and her bathroom.

"They (the restoration company) have a whole bunch of my stuff from the back room – there was some clothing but it wasn't my retail clothing," Sommers said. "They have a whole container full of my back room stuff. They even stripped my bathroom down."

She said she was very grateful, though, for FPUD's professionalism in getting the damage fixed.

"They hired the right people, because the people who are handling it have been really professional and nice and smooth," Sommers said, "and the guy in charge is A plus, they're very lucky – we're all very lucky that we've got a nice guy who's helping. He's the mediator, he gets the companies in and they get everything cleaned up."

As for the origin of the problem, FPUD said the pipe that burst was quite old – 54 years old, in fact.

"We have miles and miles of very old pipelines in Fallbrook and we are working proactively to replace them before they break and cause damage to properties. This takes time to do," Jack Bebee, FPUD general manager, said. "We are, and have been, assessing the vulnerability of these pipes and replacing them in the order they are in danger of breaks."

"This is unfortunate," Bebee said, "and we are working with the businesses and our insurance company to repair the damage as quickly as possible."

 

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