. >> for months the nbc10 investigators have been tracking the city's aging waterlines. reporter mitch blacher discovered the city is on pace to have more breaks than last year. >> it will be getting worse. the city is on pace to have more water main breaks. 3200 miles buried below the streets. this water plain in west philadelphia flooded homes and crippled cars. >> look at my block, ridiculous. >> odessa washington is still cleaning up. from down in her basement -- >> all of this was full of water, to the top. >> up to her living room and throughout the house, she's worried it won't ever be like it was. >> i just want my house -- >> it's not just here in west philly days later it happened again in huntsing park causing flooding in this shopping center. the nbc10 investigators found 546 philadelphia waterlines have snapped so far this year it's an average of three a day. >> something's going to be done about this we're endangering the public. >> charles mcmahon spent decades teaching metal science at the university of pennsylvania. he said more than 2300 miles of philad

the gangways are above the waterline. it was another problem with the design of the ship. it is meant to elevate and drop. if he gets too close, the water is going to gush in. and then, you are lost. you cannot recover. questioner: another thing, the ballast, when they pump it, they have a little oil. i was in cleveland and have the ocean liners with ballasts and they pump out oil. a sailor went out to have a smoke and he went to throw his cigarette over and the entire lake caught on fire. host: the steamship age was brief. it was a generation. it was between railroads and the automobile. for many people, if you are a robberbaron, you went on a ship and the most fabulous rich people in the world traveled on steamship. people of working means loved the fact that they could go on a steamship. part of that was economics. the steamship is large and could take a lot of passengers. the machinery allowed for many people to go on. so, i was able to look at the culture around sailors and passengers and a thing of remembered was that the chicago river was so scummy, if you remember

sf go program your sister agency is the sfmta taking the subject to replace the sewer lines and waterlines and continue to work on the auxiliary supply system and the sfpuc is putting in green infrastructure at select locations along the corridor and at the very end of this with dpw we will be repaving the van ness corridor that is in part fund bid caltrans right-of-way so bus rapid transit for those who are not family the obese feature of the system the dictated right-of-way lanes less obvious but equally important to the service improvements that are envisioned by this project are the improved traffic lights to provide the traffic light priority for vehicles and which will be rewanted to maximize the north south traffic vehicles that will speed up the boarding and unboarding abducted boarding areas for a safe comfortable space for the pedestrians between buses and large number of pedestrian improvements in keeping with the city's vision zero policies because at some point in their trip all of the sfmta's passengers are pedestrians so as i mentioned we're putting in padded bulb outs and d

you are below the waterline and you put a hole in the ship and you pipe it. you have some tanks on the left and right side of the ships. you fill them up. if you want to tip the ship this way, make it more comfortable for people to dock, you move the water from one side to the other. if you want to make it over a sand bar, you pump the water out as quickly as possible and then open it back up. it is a very clever use of water to do partial-sinking and pump it back out. very effective. it was use on cargo ships in the atlantic for years. the problem was, among other things, in the eastland, they used one water inlet. it is called a seacock. it is a little wheel that opens and in comes the rushing water from the lake. it probably needed two. one did not allow water to come in quickly. they also needed to pump the water out more quickly. they built a system that let them let water in and did not allow them to move it around very well. and, so, what i think about, to describe it to you, is, imagine having a lasagna tray full of water and you start walking with it

the third reason is dirt may have gotten into the waterline when the water pressure dropped. eve farington encourages her kids to drink water on hot summer days. what's different today is instead of getting it from the tap, she's pouring it from bottles. that's because last night employees with the california water service came to their home to let the family know their tap water may be contaminated with e-coli a harmful bacteria that can cause symptoms including diarrhea cramps and headaches. >> we notified about 850 customers that the water should be boiled before it can be consumed. >> reporter: eve believes the warning came too late for her 8-year-old son tyler. >> my stomach was just lurching. >> i was very concerned. my son was sick the night prior to finding out about it. so -- i think that he probably was sick due to the e-coli. so he vomited and was very sick. >> reporter: the water service company first detected the e-coli when testing the water after repairing a broken main friday. 8 855 losality al toes commerce may be affected. it may be wednesday before families

sf go program your sister agency is the sfmta taking the subject to replace the sewer lines and waterlines and continue to work on the auxiliary supply system and the sfpuc is putting in green infrastructure at select locations along the corridor and at the very end of this with dpw we will be repaving the van ness corridor that is in part fund bid caltrans right-of-way so bus rapid transit for those who are not family the obese feature of the system the dictated right-of-way lanes less obvious but equally important to the service improvements that are envisioned by this project are the improved traffic lights to provide the traffic light priority for vehicles and which will be rewanted to maximize the north south traffic vehicles that will speed up the boarding and unboarding abducted boarding areas for a safe comfortable space for the pedestrians between buses and large number of pedestrian improvements in keeping with the city's vision zero policies because at some point in their trip all of the sfmta's passengers are pedestrians so as i mentioned we're putting in padded bulb outs and d

problem was that because the ship had a tendency to tip those gangways needed to be well above the waterline. they were not. another problem was the design. it is meant to elevate and drop. tickets to close, that water is going to gush in. -- if it gets too close, that water is going to washgush in. >> when they pump it out, it tends to have oil in it. i know. i lived in cleveland. they have ocean liners and when they pump out the bilge, it has oil. when it went out, the whole lake can't fire -- caught on fire. >> it did not happen in this case. one of the two things for me, in writing about the time. -- in writing about the time period, is there was the steamship and the railroad. if you were a robber baron, you got to go on a fabulous steamship. the titanic, something like that. the most fabulous, rich people in the world traveled on steam ships. people of meager means loved that they could go on a steamship as well. part of that was economics. the ships were large. the machinery allows for many many more people to go on it. i was able to look at the very odd, weird culture around sailors