Traffic & Transit
Portland International Airport Loses Water After Main Is Cut
A construction worker at PDX cut a water main at 2:45 Wednesday afternoon. For three hours, the airport's bathrooms and restaurants were dry
PORTLAND, OR – Travel in the holiday season is hard enough. Now, think about it with three hours at the airport and there's no water for the bathrooms or restaurants, or water fountains. No running water all.
That was the situation at Portland International Airport – which serves more than 50,000 people each day – on Wednesday afternoon, into the night.
A construction worker accidentally cut a water main about 2:45 in the afternoon. The result was the airport's water fountains, it's more than 100 bathrooms, and many restaurants were without.
Find out what's happening in Portlandfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The water main was repaired by 5:30 and water started flowing again around 30 minutes later.
Find out what's happening in Portlandfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Getting water back to the bathrooms, water fountains, restaurants and others affected, took several more hours.
With the water out, hand-washing stations were set up around the airport, food that had already been prepared were still being sold, and bottled water distributed to passengers and staff.
No flights were said to be affected.
Photo via Port of Portland.
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.