ST. LOUIS — The water to a city block in Dutchtown was out for nearly 24 hours after neighbors said a car hit a fire hydrant.
The City of St. Louis Water Division said water on Liermann Avenue has since been restored.
“We were decorating the house for Christmas and we heard a loud bang of some kind. It sounded like something had fallen over the whole house, kind of shook,” neighbor John MacEnulty said.
Neighbor John MacEnulty said he never saw the car hit the hydrant but other neighbors did and called the police when the hydrant was flowing into the street.
“And most likely, the car was driving the wrong way down the street, which is a common problem,” MacEnulty said.
Another neighbor said with several kids in the house, not having water was a big problem.
"I mean life without water is nothing, you know? So we have to buy water to cook and water for drinks. Nobody can do anything without water,” neighbor Mahid Mohammedi said.
Mohammedi said he’s frustrated by the lack of communication around the issue.
“When it broke down, they didn't say anything. They didn't say anything at all,” Mohammedi said.
MacEnulty said this water outage has highlighted an even bigger issue in their neighborhood they’ve been dealing with for years: wrong-way drivers and speeding that’s caused crashes that don’t get resolved.
“The real problem is that city services are all stretched so thin right now. There's a lot of reasons I'm not going to argue with people about what they are because all of them have an element of truth to them. But they do need to do something,” MacEnulty said.
Even though the water has been turned back on neighbors still have questions.
The City of St. Louis Water Division said the water is safe to drink and use and there's no need to boil it, but they will have to do more work on the street on Monday.