The day Darlo ran dry

by Angus Thompson
Darlinghurst residents resorted to using local fountains as wells during a water outage that lasted several hours on Sunday.

A burst water main on New South Head Road caused the outage, cutting the plumbing from Bayswater Road to McLachlan Avenue to Royston Street.

Sydney Water was notified of flooding on the road at 5 am and responded by turning off the water at 6.15, expecting a return to services at 3.30pm. However, the job was complicated when repairmen had to wait on Sydney City Council to fell a large tree obstructing the pipeline, delaying the process by three hours.

Barcom Avenue resident Fiona Bass was just one of several locals who resorted to filling buckets from the stagnant fountains on the corner of Craigend Street and New South Head Road just to be able to flush the toilet.

“I used to have to do this kind of thing when I lived in rural South Australia, when our tank water ran out,” said Ms Bass, 51, who said the lack of water made the 28-degree heat even more stifling.

“I never thought I would have to do this in the city. This is third-world.”

Arolsley McNeilly, another Barcom Avenue resident, also queued up to bring water back to her unit.

“I had to drive to a friend’s house to take a shower this morning,” she said.

While bottled water sales were doing well at the local corner shop, approximately 200 properties were affected by the shutdown, the majority of them units.

A spokesperson for Sydney Water, Brendan Elliott, said the only assurance he could offer was that it was a routine job complicated by the need to remove a large tree.

“This is a fault the length of which is beyond our control,” he said.

“We obviously regret the inconvenience. If it wasn’t for the need to remove a large tree then our repairs would’ve been done four to five hours sooner.”

Depending on each person’s individual case, Mr Elliott said that he could not rule out compensation for some of those affected.