NIAGARA FALLS, NY — We've been reporting for weeks on the numerous water main breaks in the City of Niagara Falls, resulting in low water pressure for many residents. And now, we're learning of a new issue the Niagara Falls Water Board has been dealing with — dozens of broken fire hydrants across the city.
It's been something the new leadership of the Niagara Falls Water Board says they've been focused on, since taking over less than a year ago. Just imagine, a fire breaks out at your home, and the fire hydrant on your street won't work.
The Niagara Falls Water Board says early last year, 152 fire hydrants across the city were broken, and were in need of repair or replacement. To give you some perspective, there are 2,500 fire hydrants across the city, so six percent of them were broken. The water board says it still has at this point about 50 hydrants that need to be fixed.
REPORTER: Should people be concerned about something breaking out in their home and hey is that fire hydrant down the street is that going to work for me?
"Where there are fire hydrants that are out of service, fire already knows long before they leave the firehouse on a given street what hydrants are in service and which ones aren't so they're not going to roll up to a dead hydrant," said Nick Forster, a NFWB member.
And with that knowledge, firefighters would plug into another hydrant in the area, or bring in extra reserves of water.
The Niagara Falls Water Board says it plans to have the remaining hydrants that are broken, all fixed by mid-summer. Once that happens, according to the water board, that would be the first time it had all its hydrants in service, in the past 30 years.