Former city contractor gives insight into what may have caused so many water main breaks in Atlanta

ATLANTA — John D. Stephens has more than 30 years of experience as a former contractor who’s worked on multiple City of Atlanta watershed projects.

“I’ve done a lot of work at the airport,” Stephens said.

Channel 2 investigative reporter Ashli Lincoln showed him an image of the broken pipe that city crews removed from under 11th and West Peachtree streets.

“They haven’t made big cast iron pipe like this in several years,” Stephens said.

He told Lincoln that with aging systems, slow is the method towards prevention.

He said a common cause for multiple breaks is when the water flow is turned on and off too quickly.

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“You just got to be slow, you got to take it real slow and make sure you don’t get a hammer in that line,” Stephens said.

While the City of Atlanta works to investigate the cause of multiple breaks that occurred in less than three days, Stephens said what’s called “hammer breaks” aren’t uncommon.

“That water is moving fast, and then all of a sudden it stops, and then it does like that, and we call them hammer breaks,” Stephens said.

Unlike air, Stephens said water can’t compress.

When systems are turned on and off too quickly, it leaves the water nowhere to go, resulting in breaks.

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