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Most toilets now functioning at Falls hospital

Memorial Medical Center had to use buckets to flush toilets since a water main break which occurred last week several miles from the hospital, and which has still not been repaired.

NIAGARA FALLS, NY – As of late Wednesday afternoon, the Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center reported that sufficient water pressure had been restored to its complex of buildings, so that most (but still not all) toilets could be flushed on upper floors.

Due to the rupture of a major water main on Niagara Falls Boulevard near 47th Street, which happened on Friday night, the hospital noticed a dramatic drop in water pressure beginning Saturday morning.

Resourceful hospital staff went to Home Depot and bought all the five gallon buckets they could, forming a brigade, at times augmented by firefighters, to manually flush toilets that would not function due to low pressure.

Under the direction of hospital President and CEO Joseph A. Ruffolo, a plumbing consultant was also hired to reconfigure some pipes to increase the pressure enough for staff to begin to be able to cast their buckets aside.

Meanwhile, bids were unsealed Wednesday afternoon from contractors looking to repair the rupture.

The lowest of the bids ($292,650) was submitted by Alden base Concrete Applied Technology Corporation (CATCO).

However, a CATCO representative told WGRZ-TV that while the hard to find parts to make the repairs had been secured, they might not arrive in Western New York for several weeks.

Water Board Superintendent Bob Drury therefore could not say with any degree of certainty when the repairs to the vintage 1960 junction box at the source of the problem, and several nearby shut off valves which have failed, would be complete.

However, Drury assured that there is preparatory work at the site of the leak that CATCO could do “right away” in order to facilitate repairs “as soon as possible.”

In another development, a resident of the Packard Court Apartments, just steps from the break, received an erroneous boil water “notice” from their landlords at the Niagara Falls Housing Authority, which apparently acted without consultation with the Niagara County Health Department or the Water Board.

Officials from those agencies are the only ones who can issue such advisories, and say there is no need for those residents to boil their water.

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