Action 13: Willowbrook-area median's water may have been gushing for days

Courtney Carpenter Image
Thursday, March 2, 2023
Video shows major leak shooting water into the air in NW Houston
Action 13 is asking "whose leak is it anyway?" A Willowbrook-area gusher has continued for days, and city and county officials are trying to iron out whose responsible for stopping it.

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- As of Wednesday, 1,279 calls about water leaks have been received by the City of Houston's 311 line. As of last week, the city had 550 confirmed leaks.

Action 13 learned about a major leak on the northwest side after a viewer sent a video into our newsroom and shared his concern that it had been gushing water for days.

The leak is located in the median of the Highway 249 frontage road and Willow Chase Boulevard in the Willowbrook area.

The viewer and many others who work around there say this leak has been going on for several days now and that they reported it to the City of Houston's 311.

Houston Public Works says technically, the median where the leak is happening is in Harris County and this leak of an irrigation system is on private property. Therefore, whoever owns the property is the one who is responsible for fixing it.

When ABC13 reached out to Harris County, though, officials said the area is within the city.

After multiple calls and emails, still no one could tell Action 13 who owns the little piece of land where the problem is happening.

By Wednesday afternoon, a Houston Public Works crew came out to try and turn the water off but was not able to.

So what's next?

Public Works told ABC13 that though it is private property, the utility's top priority is turning the water off in order to stop this major leak.

Editor's Note: ABC13 incorrectly stated the number of leaks when the initial number actually referred to the number of calls about leaks. We apologize for the error and it has been corrected.

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SEE ALSO: 'It's a lot:' There are hundreds of active water leaks in Houston, costing everyone money

Houston's Public Works Department said there are more than 500 active water leaks in the city's infrastructure earlier this week.