SALISBURY — When calls came into Salisbury police dispatcher Christine Harrison on Wednesday afternoon about water flooding Salisbury Square, she thought it was just the hydrant flushing the Public Works Department had been engaged in this week.
"I told the guy who called it was probably just water from the hydrant flushing," Harrison said yesterday. "But he said, 'Water's coming up through the middle of the road — this is no hydrant flushing.'"
The caller was right, according to Salisbury Public Works Director Don Levesque. About 2 p.m. a monitoring well broke under Lafayette Road in the middle of the Square. Although water was shut off and affected about a dozen businesses or homes in the area from 2:30 to 7 p.m., Levesque said, things turned out OK.
"We provided water to the businesses that lost their water," Levesque said. "Everyone responded well. People were pretty nice, actually."
The break and repair work snarled traffic in the Square on a nice spring day that drew many to the beach. But police altered the traffic signals and directed traffic Wednesday night. It helped clear up the lines of cars feeding into the Square from intersecting roads.
Crews made a temporary repair, containing the problem. Permanent repairs were made yesterday and the road repaired before noon.
