Deep freeze leaves burst pipes all over Boston

The water was turned off and when she called her maintenance contractor on Sunday morning, he said her property was the 19th address on the street that was having problems.

“It looks like Tuesday next week,” she said, before workers can clean up the damage. “And then I’ll probably have to have my ceiling ripped off. The hardwood floors got a ton of water [damage] underneath, so it looks like those might be coming too.

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The cold front brought extreme temperatures and wind chills as low as 30 degrees below zero in Boston, meteorologists said, freezing pipes across the region.

Carl Jonasson, owner of CH Jonasson Corp., a Needham-based plumbing, heating and air conditioning company, said he prefers repeat customers who are likely to get a repair within days. Everyone else should be prepared to wait.

“It could take a week or two for non-regular customers,” Jonasson said Monday. “Most plumbers today don’t even answer the phone.”

In Haverhill, firefighters were called Monday to a condominium complex on Casablanca Street where they were cleaning up water damage to a unit whose owner was out of town, said Jennifer Piazza, a resident at the complex.

The same thing had previously happened in another unit, she said.

“It looked like they were just trying to stem the water,” Piazza said of the firefighters who arrived on Monday.

Among the shops that suffered water damage was the Little Donkey restaurant in Cambridge’s Central Square.

On Saturday, chef and co-owner Jamie Bissonnette posted a video clip of water gushing from a leak in the restaurant’s ceiling and wrote that the restaurant was “closed for maintenance.”

On Monday, Bissonnette said the restaurant would reopen Monday night after crews worked over the weekend to patch the leak.

“It’s a difficult pill to swallow,” Bissonnette said.

The extreme conditions also hit hospitals. A frozen pipe ruptured in the Boston Medical Center emergency room Saturday night, forcing it to close.

“All patients in the affected areas of the ER have been safely transferred to other areas of the hospital,” hospital officials wrote on Twitter. “The emergency room will remain closed through Tuesday.”

Due to severe weather, a pipe froze and burst in the emergency room at Boston Medical Center Saturday night. All patients in the affected areas of the emergency department have been safely transferred to other areas of the hospital. The emergency room will remain closed until Tuesday.

— Boston Medical Center (@The_BMC) February 5, 2023

But on Monday, the hospital said the emergency room had reopened a day earlier than planned.

“We appreciate your patience while we work to restore full operations, which could result in longer ER wait times,” the hospital wrote. “We thank our incredible teams for their work around the clock!”

The Boston Medical Center emergency room is open Mon 2/6. We appreciate your patience while we work to restore full operations, which may result in longer ER wait times. Thank you to our incredible teams for their 24/7 work!

— Boston Medical Center (@The_BMC) February 6, 2023

And BMC wasn’t the only hospital struggling with the cold temperatures.

On Saturday morning, parts of the HVAC system that supplies the Hale Building for Transformative Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital failed, circulating air from sewer rooms into parts of the building, officials said. As a result, several emergency room workers were treated for symptoms including headaches, eye irritation and breathing problems.

Leaks and flooding were also reported in several rooms, and three operating rooms are in need of sanitation and will be offline until later in the week, a spokesman for Brigham and Women’s said.

On Sunday morning at Tufts Medical Center, a pipe froze and burst behind a utility cabinet that sits against an outside wall. The flooding affected a corridor used to transport patients from the emergency room to an elevator leading to the cardiac catheterization lab and operating rooms on different floors.

Anticipating potential problems given the building’s age and rapidly falling temperatures, the hospital had extra resources on-site to turn off the water, fix the pipe and quickly clear any debris, officials said.

At the Boch Center’s Wang Theater, a burst sprinkler pipe resulted in a comedy show being canceled Saturday afternoon, the venue said in a statement.

The damage was caused by “the record-breaking cold, which caused similar problems in several buildings in Boston’s theater district,” the venue said.

After an alarm went off, staff evacuated the building and began searching for the source of the problem. While working with firefighters, employees discovered a crack in the sprinkler system in a boiler room. Tickets for the canceled shows will be redeemed on April 29, the venue said.

On Monday, Boch Wang spokesman Matthew Pacific said the issue was “fully resolved and all shows are continuing as planned this week.”

Meanwhile in Newton, the Mayyim Hayyim Jewish spiritual center was forced to close on Saturday after “several burst pipes” caused significant water damage and a collapsed ceiling.

“We are devastated by this,” Carrie Bornstein, the center’s executive director, said in a statement. “But we will emerge to continue our mission of celebration, healing and renewal.”

Staff had taken steps to keep the building warm but to no avail. The amount of the damage is still being determined.

“For an institution that exists to celebrate the transformative spiritual power of water, the impact is devastating,” the center said.

Jonassaon, the plumber, said Monday that loyal customers will keep track. After a deep freeze like this, it’s history that counts, he said.

“If they treat me with dignity and respect, I go to those people first,” he said.

Material from previous Globe articles has been used in this report. Jessica Bartlett and Shannon Larson from the Globe staff contributed to this report.

Travis Andersen can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe. Jessica Bartlett can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @ByJessBartlett.

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