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Feb 3, 2006 5:54 pm US/Eastern
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I-Team Investigation: Broken Fire Hydrants
Click here for a list of Philadelphia fire hydrants reported out of service as of January 19th.
Click here for a list of Philadelphia fire hydrants reported out of service as of January 30th.
by Jim Osman
PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ―
There is a fire hydrant on just about every block in every town. It is the one piece of equipment that could save not only your home, but your life. While you may assume it will work the
CBS 3 I-Team found a surprising number of broken fire hydrants in our area.
There won't be much left of this suburban house come morning. The owners were left helpless and now homeless since the night a busted hydrant failed.
"It didn't have to be my house that burned. It could have been someone else's house that burned," said Brown.
CBS 3's Jim Osman reports the
I-Team uncovered hundreds of broken fire hydrants during their investigation. Many were out of service, in some cases, for years.
Some of the busted hydrants are in the last places you would expect, next to buildings that house children, the sick and the elderly.
"Absolutely unacceptable, no doubt about it," said CBS 3 Public Safety Consultant Harold Hairston.
"I told them get out of the bed something is on fire."
Joel Brown's family escaped to witness this night's second disturbing scene.
"The fireman said 'nothing we can do,'" said Brown.
Faulty lights on the Christmas tree sparked the house fire. The Brown's had to look on as a busted hydrant prevented fire fighters from immediately putting it out.
"It haunts me, it bothers me cause they couldn't save the house," said Brown.
United Water, which operates that hydrant and others in Northern Delaware, contends a paramedic and trained firefighter busted the hydrant.
The State Fire Marshal's office said it has not officially determined the cause of the broken hydrant. Inspections of both hydrants six months ago showed them to be working.
But there places here in the Delaware Valley where residents and fire departments actually reported broken hydrants years ago and they remained, according to government records, out of service.
In Philadelphia, years of city records obtained by CBS 3 show 25-percent of the cities almost 350 broken fire hydrants have been busted for six months or longer and still were not repaired.
Philadelphia's Former Fire Commissioner Harold Hairston, a CBS 3 public safety consultant, reviewed the CBS 3 I-Team uncovered.
"It's unacceptable to leave hydrants in disrepair they ought to be corrected," said Hairston.
One busted hydrant that has been out of service for a year and a half was located next to Penn Hospital at 34th and Spruce.
City records show another broken hydrant has been out of service for almost two and a half year and only one other hydrant has been waiting for repairs longer.
That hydrant is located at Alexander Wilson Elementary school at Melville and Saybrook Avenue.
"It's very concerning... we have kids here... and we trust they have everything under control".
The City of Philadelphia admits it has made mistakes.
"What that list highlights is that things do fall through the cracks," said Debra McCarty of the Philadelphia Water Department.
Philadelphia's percent of broken hydrants is three times that of the City of Wilmington's and six times that of Allentown's.
Though a city official said that because Philly has thousands of hydrants, most of which do work, the public is protected.
"There is still the coverage that's needed to fight the fire," said McCarty.
Joel Brown of Northern Delaware would have made the same assumption until one fire and a one broken hydrant reduced his house to rubble.
"It's just devastating to know that what you worked for, struggled to have, just went up in a matter of seconds," said Brown.
Once the City of Philadelphia discovered what the CBS 3 I-Team discovered in their investigation, it got to work to fix the problems
Updated records obtained by CBS 3 now show 198 City of Philadelphia hydrants listed as out of service. The first set of records we obtained listed almost 350 hydrants as out of service.
"We saw some of the same things you did, we knocked that list down to much less out of service," said McCarty
And since our initial inquiry the City of Philadelphia has cut in half the number of fire hydrants listed as out of service for six months or longer.
Click here for a list of Philadelphia fire hydrants reported out of service as of January 19th.
Click here for a list of Philadelphia fire hydrants reported out of service as of January 30th.
Note: These lists are for the city of Philadelphia only. If you do not live in Philadelphia you can call your local municipality to find a list of broken hydrants in your neighborhood.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)