File photo A pickup truck’s collision with a fire hydrant on Central Street in Elkins on Oct. 24 resulted in substantial damage to the city’s water infrastructure, an official said.

ELKINS — A truck striking a fire hydrant on Central Street resulted in substantial damage to the city’s water infrastructure, resulting in the loss of about 3 million gallons of water, an official said.

Public Water System Chief Operator and Manager Wes Lambert updated Elkins City Council during their Thursday night meeting on the “substantial” damage caused by a vehicle striking a city fire hydrant on Oct. 24.

The hydrant, which sits on the corner of Central Street and Lincoln Avenue, was struck by a pickup truck on the afternoon of Oct. 24, causing water to flow down Central Street. Lambert said damage to the hydrant caused “severe damage” throughout the area.

“This hydrant caused severe damage to the water infrastructure in that vicinity, as well as the surrounding roadway,” Lambert said during his report. “It also caused some damage to some of the surrounding neighboring homes there.”

Lambert went on to explain how, because of the way the hydrant had been damaged, city employees were forced to open other hydrants in Second Ward.

“When the vehicle struck the hydrant, instead of breaking the hydrant off right at the main line, it broke it back past the gate valve,” Lambert said. “So we couldn’t just shut the hydrant off. Most of the hydrants in Elkins do have those valves so you can just isolate that hydrant and fix the hydrant and turn it back on, but when they’re broke past the valve, then you have to back up further.”

Lambert said the hydrant on the corner of Central Street and Lincoln Avenue is at the intersection and fed by an 18-inch main line and 12-inch main line. Even with turning off all of the valves they could for those two lines, Lambert said officials were still getting some “bleed through” of water somewhere.

To ensure the area would be safe for their employees to fix the hydrant, the Water Distribution Department had to open up several hydrants that were “downstream” of the one at Central Street and Lincoln Avenue to “take the pressure off.”

Lambert said the hydrant and water infrastructure were now repaired, and that an invoice for reimbursement had been sent to the insurance company on Wednesday.

When asked by Elkins Mayor Jerry Marco what the water loss from the incident and necessary hydrant-opening was, Lambert said that around 3 million gallons were lost, and that a bill for that had also been sent to the insurance company. City Clerk Sutton Stokes then asked how much is normally in the city’s water tank.

“Well, we have two tanks,” Lambert said. “We have a 3 million gallon tank and a 1.5 million, so it essentially could have drained one of our tanks. I had an operator at the plant that actually stayed clear up to about 5 o’clock that morning pumping, and he was losing about… with him pumping, he was still losing about half a foot in that tank every hour. So it was pretty substantial.”

Lambert thanked the city’s Wastewater and Street departments for their help in the matter.

“We couldn’t have done our job without them because it was just… There was so much happening at once,” Lambert said. “We were trying to focus on the waterline and the Sewer Department came out and helped us with their vac-truck. It made the job so much nicer to suck the mud and everything out around the hydrant, and the Street Department came and set up barricades and kind of filled in where we couldn’t, and it was just a team effort. We really appreciate all the help.”