Moment When Gas Line Worker Broke The Water Main

0:28 seconds into the video you see the gas line replacement worker's raw reaction after he accidentally ruptures a water main in the city of Baltimore.

[Preview]

On the other hand, at least it wasn't a water line worker breaking a gas main.

[Antmanmoto]

In his defense, it looks like Dude barely touched it. It’s probably 200 years old!

[smoothlyrough]

Yeah, if your putting a hand powered shovel through a main water line, something might be wrong with said pipe

[dc]

How could he possibly break a water main with a shovel? Must have been the same metal they use on all these new trucks...

[kolsen]

In Seattle and Tacoma they still have wooden water pipes from the early 1900s. They are wire wound wooden boards. About 15 years ago, while replacing a section of water main in University Place, the water workers found that the original contractor from 30 years previous had used electrical conduit instead of pipe. Another 10 blocks had to be dug up and replaced. Once its buried, its hard to tell what is underground and its condition.

[drwhoeric]

Clearly not the workers fault. Aging water mains can easily be broken just by looking at them.

[kAGRAR]

..i think the worker with the shovel didn't break anything!
By the way, I'm a Canal builder 😉
..these guys use a "soil rocket" for the house connections! is correctly called: soil displacement process!
..this is powered by compressed air!
You can clearly see it in the compressed air hose that the worker in the front of the picture is pushing!
This rocket 🚀 penetrates cast iron and PE pipes equally without any problems!

Best regards from germany (east germany, so many time must be)!
🤘🏼😎

In German we say:

..ich denke, der Kollege mit der Schaufel hat gar nichts kaputt gemacht!

nebenbei, ich bin Kanalbauer 😉
(Tiefbaufacharbeiter)
Die Jungs benutzen eine so genannte Erdrakete für die Hausanschlüsse! nennt sich korrekt: Bodenverdrängungsverfahren!
..diese wird mit Pressluft angetrieben!
sieht man eindeutig an dem Druckluftschlauch, den der Kollege vorn im Bild nachschiebt!

diese Rakete 🚀 durchdringt Gusseisen und PE Rohr gleichermaßen ohne Probleme!

Schöne Grüße aus Deutschland, (Ostdeutschland, soviel Zeit muss sein)! 🤘🏼😎

[LunaDaSavage]

Man a simple shovel should not be able to break no water main.
They should be stronger than that.

[maliklowry]

1:06 you could just see his frustration when he throws down the shovel!

[ricknelson]

Must have been an old Ductile Iron line that can rupture if you look at it cross eyed. The only thing you can do to prevent damaging one is to not dig within a block of it. A bad day for all involved.

[shangman]

if you fwd & rwd between 40s and 50s you can see the whole ground begging to lift that water line cracked along it seem for sure.

[peka__]

"Let's call it a day, mates. That's now the water guys' job."

[tothesummit]

Guy with the shovel didn't break it. He was the first to notice the problem, but it's hard to say exactly where the failure occurred. The first water that appears in the video actually shoots up in the hole next to the excavator at 48 seconds just a moment before it appears in shovel-guys hole. And at 1:04 the water begins to find a way to the surface at the curb/sidewalk. Most likely the failure occurred due to construction going on around old pipes but it wasn't shovel-guy puncturing a line.

[LakerSicko_]

He didn’t break it with the shovel. Its the guy with the red hose. Hes running a air missile to the hole where the guy is digging. Once he would of finished they would of pushed that yellow 3/4 inch pipe thru the hole. Witch would of been tied into their main gas line. As well as the meter their putting in by the house. They’re preparing to put in two service lines right there.

[psiewert]

Union work at it's finest. Never seen so many grown men with hands in their pockets with not a single clue what to do.

[rickgoddard]

That guy hid the mini excavator in a hurry

[ChrisPBacon-wqpu]

Much better than breaking the gas main 💥

[mrmustache]

Dang that will mess up the entire work day. Poor guy. Must feel terrible

[carlschroeder]

He was hand digging, what else could he have done? The water main was already weak, probably cracked from age, the pressure of the dirt covering it was the only thing holding it together.

[asbestosfiber]

I think it may have been the dude at the bottom of the frame. He may have had a jackhammer and the water was spraying up from the ground near him