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When it rains and pours, dry wells can help drain the asphalt and cement landscapes of urban areas. Buy when a pipe bursts and floods, they don’t seem to keep anything dry very well.

Around 4 a.m. today, water began spilling into the streets from a broken 8-inch water pipe around Northeast 67^th Avenue between Northeast Pacific and Hassalo streets. The water made its way to a number of houses in the area, flooding basements. All told, 36 water services are shut off for the day, according to Portland Water Bureau spokeswoman Terry Black.

The pipes in the 2,200-mile, 100-plus-year-old system have broken in the past. One was an 18-foot, 聽cast iron pipe installed in 1956 that broke horizontally. 鈥淚t was a pretty major split; those [cast iron] pipes aren’t that forgiving,鈥� Black said. 鈥淭here are a lot of apartments in the area.鈥�

Firefighters working to contain the flooding that one of the major problems in draining the pools of water everywhere is the ineffective draining of 聽dry wells in the area. Dry wells, or cement-lined canisters filled with rock, collect rainwater for storm-water management. Black was not able to comment at post time on why the dry wells were a problem because she was busy focusing on the pipe rupture. The problem may be because of the area’s (possible high water table), 聽an area in which the city cautions the installation of dry wells.

Black said the Water Bureau hopes to replace the cast iron pipe with a more flexible, ductile iron one by the end of today.

Photo by via Flickr