DIXMOOR, Ill. (WLS) — It is not clear if two south suburban schools will remain closed Wednesday due to a series of water main breaks.
The school district superintendent initially said schools would remain closed another day, then backtracked and said they would be open. As of 10:30 p.m., he said that he could not confirm if school would or would not be in session Wednesday. Parents will likely need to wait until the morning to find out.
Sunday’s water main break that closed Martin Luther King Elementary and Rosa Parks Middle School also left more than 1,000 families without water.
Another happened Monday morning off of West 147th Street, and at least two more were found during a Tuesday morning survey. The suburb has faced nine water main breaks since Friday.
Corrosion that’s been eating away at the pipes for the last century is cracking one after the next. By Tuesday afternoon, the village was battling at least four active water main breaks.
Residents in Dixmoor have grown accustomed to using bottled water for their daily needs, but it’s made life much more difficult for everyone.
“I drink bottled water now; I don’t drink the faucet water,” Dixmoor resident Carla Murphy said.
Village President Fitzgerald Roberts recognizes it’s a serious problem, and the village is fixing it one patch at a time. But they’re having to scramble more frequently; the same thing happened at least twice in July.
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“You can’t cook, you can’t wash. It’s a serious problem,” he said.
The infrastructure is old, likely more than 100 years old, and can’t keep up. Cook County and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will pitch in $2 million to the village for repair work that starts in October. For now, they’ll hope Monday and Tuesday’s patches will hold.
Village officials are asking the state to declare an emergency to open more funds.
The schools, which make up two of Dixmoor’s three, were already expected to remain closed Tuesday for testing by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.
There is now also a boil water order — only in the affected areas of the break. The village president said the order is likely to remain in place until 1 p.m. Wednesday.
SEE ALSO | Village of Dixmoor receives $2M to help solve water issues
While Dixmoor has had the most problems when it comes to water over the last year, it is one the entire Southland area is struggling with and that they can’t simply fix on their own, no matter how badly they want to.
“A lot of these municipalities don’t have the funding to fix it,” said Commissioner Deborah Sims, with the Cook County Board 5th District. “You look at Dixmoor, it’s a small community. They have enough problems. Unless we can pump enough money into these communities, we’re going to continue to have these problems.”
At least a dozen parents showed up Tuesday morning to try to drop their students off at school, only to be turned away and informed school was canceled for the second day in a row.
“We come in and to my surprise, it’s closed,” parent Veneos Martinez said. “It’s very terrible for the students because it’s important. The students waiting for a long time, the summer, to come in.”
Chopper 7 HD captured a video of crews working on repairs in Dixmoor on Monday afternoon.
“It’s frustrating. Yeah ugh, it’s frustrating,” parent Chediah Rials said. “My first day of school is today, so she’ll be at school with me at Governor State. I am totally astounded. I would think all of this would be done last school year.”
Some of the new breaks found Tuesday are at 145th Street, between Davis and Western avenues, and 147th Street, between Cooper and Leavitt avenues.
“So see you tomorrow,” Martinez said.
The village president said the break on 147th is only a few block from the one fixed Monday night.
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