How D'Amelio's Italian Eatery Recovers from Water Main Break in Waterbury
It’s not the first-time a water main break has left people in Connecticut without water for days.
For the past week, the City of Waterbury has dealt with two water main breaks, leaving hundreds of thousands of people and businesses without water. Right near Town Plot Park lies D’Amelio’s Italian Eatery.
“It’s Waterbury with no water.” says Lisa Burnett, a server at D’Amelio’s.
The restaurant had to temporarily close its doors last night, after the water suddenly shut off early afternoon because of the water main break.
“2:00 p.m… the water started trinkling out. It was probably 2:30 p.m. There was no water whatsoever.” said Burnett.
This morning, the City of Waterbury confirmed crews have fixed the pipes and water is restored. However, a boil water order is still in effect as of Saturday night.
D’Amelio’s quickly got the green light from the health department this morning to open the restaurant back up for business. Even though it was only closed for less than 24 hours, the restaurant still missed out on a lot of customers.
“Oh my gosh… a few thousand dollars easily. That was just one night. Can you imagine all the other times? That just keeps on adding up. It’s a lot of money. It’s not just the owners of the restaurant, it’s people like us that depend on waiting on people.” said Burnett. “We love the job that we do, so it shows in our performance. That’s where we get our money to pay our bills. If we don’t have that, we can’t do anything either.”
Just down the street from D’Amelio’s is the water distribution center on Watertown Avenue, near the Municipal Stadium. By the end of the day, crews gave out 24 pallets of free bottled water.
That’s over 1700 cases of water.
The water pipes are around 100 years old, and it may just explain why the water main breaks happened back to back. With a boil water notice still in effect, it’s been tough on everyone to say the least.
“We had no water at all yesterday whatsoever. We finally got (water) pressure back this morning.” said David Grant, a resident in Waterbury. “It started off really slow, but then it came to full force. But we obviously can’t drink it yet, so we’re getting water.”
With the restaurant opening back up, the smell of Italian food is once again, filling up the corner of D’Amelio’s.
The water distribution center is open again on Sunday, 8/2, from 10-5pm. Mayor Pernerwski of Waterbury says crews are set to send in water samples tomorrow for testing.
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