UPDATE: (This story was updated at 2:56 p.m. on Nov. 1)
ONTARIO — Ontario’s city crews restored water to all of the city as of about 10:30 p.m. Monday.
A boil advisory remained in effect for the whole city until Tuesday at 2 p.m.
Water line breaks left the whole City of Ontario without water starting at 4:30 p.m. Sunday for line repairs. Water was restored to most of the city around 8 a.m. Monday with a boil water advisory.
Crews continued work Monday afternoon and evening at Park Avenue West, Sunset Road and South Lexington-Springmill Road to repair those line breaks, according to a statement from Mayor Randy Hutchinson.
As of 3:45 p.m. on Monday, the Area Agency on Aging, located at 2131 Park Ave West, was still without city water.
CEO Duana Patton said her team had bottled water for themselves and for patrons. She said Hutchinson called her Sunday to alert her of the possibility of water line breaks continuing into the work day.
“We were really able to develop a contingency plan because of that advance notice,” she said. “Obviously, we don’t have public bathrooms today, but we have clean porta-potties.”
Kurtzman Sanitation, based in Crestline, provided porta-potties to the Area Agency on Aging.
OhioHealth Ontario Health and Fitness Center at 1750 W 4th St. announced Sunday it would open later than usual on Monday morning.
Christina Thompson, OhioHealth media relations and communications manager, said the fitness center opened at 10 a.m. Monday with water restored.
“People like to take showers when they’re here and we wanted to make sure we could provide that,” she said. “We opened earlier than we expected, we had planned for noon and opened at 10 a.m.”
Hutchinson said the water breaks were caused by a fire hydrant closing, causing a rise in water pressure and subsequent breaks.
An equipment fire at BlueScope Recycling and Materials in Shelby around 9 p.m. Saturday required the help of multiple area fire departments.
“Due to the gravity of the fire at Milliron on State Route 39 on Saturday, multiple agencies were brought in to extinguish that fire,” Hutchinson said. “During the course of extinguishing the fire, a fire hydrant was closed which caused something called a hammer effect in the city’s lines.
“Considering how many agencies were handling the fire, there is no way for the city to determine any fault with any agency, only that the incident occurred.”
