City officials hold press conference on sinkhole in Warner Robins

WARNER ROBINS — On Thursday, Aug. 21, City of Warner Robins officials held a press conference regarding a sinkhole on Watson Boulevard that left many residents and businesses without water last week. 

According to City Administrator James Drinkard, the situation began on Tuesday, Aug. 19, around 1:30 p.m. after a pothole was reported in a lane on Watson Blvd. 

“Our stormwater division went out to take a look at that and discovered that we had something much more significant,” Drinkard said. “We had a sinkhole developing, we shut down the lanes and by about 2:30 p.m., our utilities group was on site and were taking control of the situation.” 

At the time of the press conference, workers were still at the site and had not gone home since the situation started. Drinkard said they were working in rotations and tried to rest people accordingly.  

The water main that developed the sinkhole was installed in the 1960s. Given that Watson Boulevard has expanded a lot since then, Drinkard said the pipe had been 30 feet below ground with a box culvert on top of it, installed by the state as part of the expansion. 

“It took us a lot to dig down to actually find that pipe because in the 1960s, nobody was recording where those pipes were,” he said. 

Drinkard explained that the city had to reinforce where they dug to find the pipe, which ultimately delayed the process. With the pipes on Watson Blvd. being 60 years old, Drinkard does not see that as a concern. 

“We believe that some of what we’re dealing with is a box culvert and some other things by putting additional pressure on that pipe,” he said. “Let’s be honest, anytime you’re running a water sewer system, you’re going to have breaks and leaks, but we aren’t overly concerned about having infrastructure that we believe is at risk. We believe we are dealing with the usual wear and tear and operation of a water sewer system.”

Drinkard also mentioned some complications that extended the situation. He said they identified a large natural gas force main, which is located close to the waterline. The city could not put large equipment on top of it, so workers had to dig from the roadway. 

“We’ve also dealt with situations such as the inability to get concrete delivered on the site initially due to the unavailability of concrete from the concrete suppliers mainly because their drivers, who are all CDL drivers, had reached their maximum driving time and had to be rested,” he said.  

The city’s initial belief water would be turned back on that Thursday morning; however, when they turned water on, Drinkard said they discovered a new issue that occurred up the pipe and was forcing the water back. 

Thankfully, water was restored around 7 p.m. Thursday, August 21. 

Drinkard said around 700 customers were impacted by the water outage, about 350 of them residential. 

These situations are not preventable; however, Drinkard shared that the city does routine maintenance and pipe inspections. 

“We’ll be looking and always be looking for ways that we can improve those programs, but, unfortunately, if you want to run a water sewer system, you will have leaks and you will have breaks,” he said.