CLEVELAND — Council President Blaine Griffin said he’s going to see what he can do to address Cleveland’s aging infrastructure after a water main break left people without water and flooded a local business in the city’s Buckeye neighborhood.
"Whenever you have aging infrastructure, you have these types of problems,” said Griffin.
Usually, Griffin said he sees these types of problems in the winter, so he was shocked after he saw the water main break on Cleveland’s East 130th Street and Buckeye Road early Monday afternoon.
"This time, for it to happen in the summer, was kind of interesting, and of course, we’re going to be talking to all of the public utilities folks to really understand what’s going on,” said Griffin.
Rico Santana said he was at a nearby smoke shop before the pipes burst. He said he heard a loud noise, turned around to see what happened and saw water everywhere.
"You couldn’t walk. You couldn’t walk up here, so it was crazy,” said Santana.
Because of all the water, Santana said he was trapped inside the smoke shop for about an hour before the water finally cleared up.
But Kareem Smith said his brother’s nightmare was just beginning as he showed us a video of water flooding the basement of his brother’s smoke shop.
"[The] firefighters came in to check the basement. I went down there with them, and it’s water rushing through the bricks,” said Smith. “You expect the unexpected over here. You just really question like what type of maintenance is going on with the city, the pipes underground [and] with the sewer. Is it up to par? You know it’s unfortunate.”
As Smith tries to help his brother, Cleveland’s Division of Water is making repairs and restoring water to those who lost service.
"What we need to do is just figure out where we need to plug the holes in [and] really address it,” said Griffin.
