A water main break left much of Bangor’s Stillwater Avenue without water for several hours Tuesday. The outage happened on a stretch of Stillwater that includes Northern Light Acadia Hospital, which had to make do without water.
The water supply was restored as of 4:45 p.m., the Bangor Water District wrote in a post on its Facebook page.
A main supply line on Stillwater Avenue between Fern Street and Buffalo Wild Wings, and another between Fern and Howard streets were turned off so water district crews could repair a valve that malfunctioned during a fire hydrant repair, according to Patrick Smith, construction department supervisor. In a Facebook post, the water district said the valve “blew apart.”
Acadia Hospital, which is located on Stillwater Avenue between Howard and Fern streets, had to act fast to address the lack of water.
The hospital ordered portable toilets and bottled drinking water for patients and staff, according to a spokeswoman for Northern Light Health, the hospital’s parent organization. Lunch was already prepared when the water was turned off, and staff had to make many of the preparations for dinner before water service returned.
“They notified Acadia Hospital that beginning at 11:00 am the facility could be without water for two to six hours while repairs are made,” Northern Light’s public relations director, Karen Cashman, said in a news release. “The comfort and safety of our patients is our top priority. Acadia is proactively working to ensure any effects to patient care are minimized.”
Crews were working to replace the hydrant and valve before water service was restored.