ABC News published 1/9/2014
The temperatures inching up across the country after that 205,000 arctic blast. Your stories are streaming in to us about all the pipes bursting everywhere. Waters rising and the worry about floods.
Here’s abc’s steve osunsami on the new mess out there tonight. Reporter: On lake michigan there were giant balls of ice, rolling onto the shore. But they won’t stay there long.
From chicago to new orleans, as 40 degrees. River flooding now possible. This was georgia on monday.
And this was the same water fountain today. In the south, where the thaw has already started, the warmth is revealing disasters. I didn’t know whether to cry, go out the door or what to do because I had never saw anything like this before.
Reporter: Families have been waking up to sometimes thousands of dollars in damage from frozen water pipes that busted. It took out the ceilings in the bathroom and master bath. Reporter: Here’s what’s happening.
Water that was trapped in pipes froze and expanded, putting thousands of pounds of pressure on pipes that busted on sunday and monday, started melting on tuesday and wednesday, and are flooding homes tonight. It was cascading out from the eaves like a waterfall. And I knew something had burst.
Reporter: Flooded families in nashville have to wait. The plumbers are overwhelmed. We’ve been running every day, 24 hours a day now.
We’re got shifts around the clock. Reporter: This charter school outside atlanta is recovering from a foot of water. Plumber bob brookes says it only takes a tiny break in the plumbing.
It’s not that big. No, no, no. It’s not big.
