Crews Stop Latest Sewer Main Leak In Fort Lauderdale's Upscale Victoria Park Neighborhood

FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – Crews announced they were able to stop the latest sewer leak that flooded the upscale Fort Lauderdale neighborhood of Victoria Park.

It's a major relief for residents like Tiffany Howard.

"When I woke up this morning and came out they had it cleaned up really well," she said.

Howard was having her family over in the middle of construction for a water main break right in front of her house.

But they're not paying attention to the damage, all they see is hard work.

"Eighteen hour days… so I think we need to give credit to those men doing that work," said resident Trevor Howard. "They couldn't help the break but they've done a great job in fixing it."

A bird's-eye view from the mess on Friday showed murky waters flooding streets at the most recent break.

Crews worked from 7:30 Friday morning until late in the night to fix a 16-inch pipe that spewed sewage on NE 5th Street near 16th Avenue.

Tiffany Howard said it kept her family indoors most of the day.

"The smell is really bad. It's a beautiful day, we couldn't have the windows open, the doors open. We had to keep everything closed up," she said.

Bari Wiggins saw trouble creeping up to her front door.

"Came out with the dogs and you could barely walk them because the water or whatever you wanna call it was all the way up to here, the sewage," Wiggins said.

Crews spent the afternoon vacuuming up what's left behind while the health department passed out flyers to people who live here.

That spill, though large, was contained shortly after and the repair began quickly unlike the previous three spills earlier this month.

The largest was the 52-inch pipe that broke in two spots in the ritzy Rio Vista neighborhood.

Days later, a 48-inch main broke underwater in the Himmarshee Canal.

City Manager Chris Lagerbloom said these breaks are common with old age.

The city can handle these short term breaks but they'll need a long term solution so this doesn't keep happening.

"We have a system that we need to invest money into that we need to make some repairs on," Lagerbloom said. "I can tell you that the break that happened in Rio Vista, we've got a contract for a design build project to replace that pipe and then I'll have been there much quicker than any other pipe that we've repaired in Fort Lauderdale sometime."

He said there is $200 million being spent right now on fixing the city's old sewage system with more money coming in a few years.

The city of Fort Lauderdale is holding on public meeting on the status of the sewer main repairs on Sunday afternoon.

It will get started at 2 p.m. at the Rio Vista Community Church on South Federal Highway.