Thousands of homes were left without water and schools were forced to close today after two water mains burst in the Black Country.
Blackheath Primary School, Highfields Primary School and the Upper School of Oldbury College of Sport were forced to close their doors to pupils today because of leakages at the junction of Oldbury Road and Titford Lane in Whiteheath, Oldbury.
Nearby Birchfield Lane was completely closed off and water flooded the street.
At one point around 3,700 homes in the area were without water or reported only low pressure.
And there were hold-ups on roads in the area.
The problems were initially caused by an 18-inch burst main that was discovered at 5.10am this morning.
That was isolated but a second 12-inch burst main was then discovered in the same location.
As the Express & Star went to press around 1,000 properties were still with no or only low-pressure water.
Keith Marshall from South Staffordshire Water said: “Hopefully by lunchtime most supplies will be back to normal. We have no idea what has caused this at the moment. We are trying to restore customers’ supplies first.”
Motorist Bob Downing, aged 60, who was taking his wife to Rowley Hall Primary School, said traffic on nearby Throne Road was backed up for a mile.
He said: “It was chaos. Usually you only see hold-ups like that when there has been a major incident on one of the motorways.”
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