Water shoots from a water main break on Fernwood Road in Bethesda on Tuesday afternoon. Credit: Matthew Parsons
A water main break Tuesday afternoon sent water shooting high into the air near the Marriott Headquarters on Fernwood Road in Bethesda.
Matthew Parsons, who works nearby, sent this photo of the water shooting into the air and freezing tree branches. Parsons said he first saw the break around 1 p.m., and that police have been at the scene monitoring it.
Ayoka Blandford, a spokeswoman for the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, said in an email at 4 p.m. that a crew was headed to the scene. Due to a significant amount of breaks in the area, WSSC is about two to four hours behind their normal response window, according to Blandford. She said the utility had 50 reports of open breaks this morning and this week crews have responded to a total of 201 breaks in the region.
36" main is shutdown to repair air vacuum valve, 10400 blk of Fernwood Rd. Crew must clear ice b4 repair begins. 18 customers are affected.
— WSSC Water News (@WSSCWaterNews) February 24, 2015
Parsons said police had closed the road, but it appeared around 5 p.m. that the water had stopped shooting from the water main. He shot this video of a snow plow clearing ice from the road:
