Novi, Walled Lake continue to feel impact of water main break

It's Day 4 of a boil water advisory for the cities of Novi and Walled Lake after a water main break on Saturday.

The Great Lakes Water Authority says a new steel pipe was installed yesterday, but more repairs are needed.

Field service crews with the Great Lakes Water Authority are still working on 14 Mile Road. 

During an investigation of the damage, the Great Lakes Water Authority discovered a 20-foot section of main near the original break that also needed to be fixed; that's what you see happening right now.

The 48-inch watermain break on Saturday forced a handful of families from their homes.

"Police came here, and they warned that you had to vacate the house. They gave us one hour," said Farmington Hills resident Gul Abro.

It was quite a surprise so early in the morning.

"We saw just a big pool of water just running down the end of the cul-de-sac. You could really see it moving, moving," said homeowner Shaun Black. "There's a little bridge over here. It looked like it was just swallowed up by the water. It was deep, deep, so it was, it was really bad."

The communities of Novi and Walled Lake have been under a boil water advisory since it happened.

Many expressed their discontent with the Great Lakes Water Authority at Monday night's city council meeting.

"Just like an old car, sooner or later you got to fix it, or you have to replace the car," said Novi resident Dan Tollis.

The CEO of the Great Lakes Water Authority took responsibility during the meeting.

Suzanne Coffey vowed to get more funding to repair the aging infrastructure.

"We're going to walk that walk and see if we can, we can figure out how to get some creative funding from the state and federal government to do these big projects," Coffey said.

And while Farmington Hills never lost water pressure, homeowners are not thrilled about more construction on 14 Mile Road.

"When the 14 Mile is cut off, then it diverts traffic into the neighborhood. So that's unnecessary traffic that comes through. Here we have little kids that are on bikes, so then it becomes an additional safety hazard, because you have additional traffic that you didn't think about," Black said.

Black's home wasn't impacted, but he still worries about the future.

"I just really want them to take the time to fix it right and fix it how it's supposed to be done," Black said.

Water quality testing is underway. The first round came back clear on Monday. 

More testing was done this Tuesday morning. Those results are expected to come on Wednesday.

The Great Lakes Water Authority says if the second test results are clear, the boil water advisory will be lifted on Wednesday.