By Mitchell Clarke
A burst pipe caused chaos along a busy Berwick thoroughfare, prompting road closures after water spouted into the air and flooded the immediate area.
Emergency services were called to the intersection of Bemersyde Drive and St Boswells Avenue just before 10am on Saturday 23 January, following reports of flooding.
South East Water’s customer service delivery acting general manager Andrew Forster-Knight said crews were forced to turn the water off in a bid to alleviate the pressure and flow.
“We apologise to our customers for the extended water outage – we understand it’s frustrating when the water’s not working,” he said on Saturday night.
“Unfortunately these works are taking a little longer than usual as we’re working with the relevant electricity company to take important safety measures to ensure any nearby electrical wires are managed safely.
“We’re working as quickly as possible to get the water flowing again and to complete these emergency works.”
Narre Warren SES volunteer Sue Brauner said the road had sustained some damage from the burst pipe.
“The water was gushing from underneath the roundabout. It was like a mini landslide. There was a big hole around the edge of the roundabout, so it’s obviously collapsed,” she explained.
“When we arrived on scene the water was about one metre above the ground and flowing down Bemersyde Drive towards Clyde Road at a very fast rate, so that was quite intense to see.”
Despite the chaos, no properties were impacted by the flooding.
“That was our biggest concern. I think we were very lucky that there was no threat to property,” she said.
“As you could imagine, there’s a lot of houses in the area. Maybe it’s the design of the road and the slope that kept the houses out of danger, I don’t know, but thank goodness for that.”
Ms Brauner said her team of volunteers often responded to burst water mains, but described this incident as “more intense”.
“It was an interesting one. I haven’t seen anything of that size before,” she recalled.
“The flooding was fairly deep in certain patches because of the guttering and the slope in road. It was actually quite an intense scene because it was so fast moving.
“Given the roundabout had started to collapse in areas, we didn’t know the impact downstream, so we assisted Victoria Police in securing the site, controlling traffic and keeping people safe.
“Bermerside Drive is quite a busy road and a lot of people use it as a thoroughfare, so the last thing you want is people travelling through gushing water.”
