Does the fire hydrant in your neighborhood actually work? It's a question most of us rarely, if ever, think about. The answer may be no. And in some cases, broken hydrants remain out of service for months.

Advertisement Fire hydrant repair backlog in Baltimore draws concern Some broken hydrants remain out of service for months Share Shares Copy Link Copy

Does the fire hydrant in your neighborhood actually work? It's a question most of us rarely, if ever, think about.The answer may be no. And in some cases, broken hydrants remain out of service for months.Fire hydrants are a symbol of safety and protection. They're such a common fixture in the landscape and they typically go unnoticed until they are needed.Paul Murray is a Baltimore County resident. Ironically, his job is repairing hydrants in New Jersey.He's discovered one broken hydrant after another near his Maryland home. He said he's still waiting for the city to fix one on Silver Spring Road. He called it in eight months ago."You have an issue with a hydrant, that's a public safety issue," Murray said.The 11 News I-Team pored over two years of hydrant repair records and found hundreds of hydrants in Baltimore City and county remained out of service for months.One of the longest outstanding broken hydrants was on the corner of Newberg and Magruder avenues in Catonsville. According to the information provided by the city, it sat broken for 273 days before it was finally fixed."I find it outrageous because I think it puts everybody on this street at risk, but it does not surprise me. The city is inefficient and unfortunately the county is at the mercy of the city's inefficiencies," said Ann Powell.Baltimore's Department of Public Works is responsible for maintaining some 23,000 fire hydrants in the city and county. Its goal is to make those repairs in 60 days or less, yet the I-Team found dozens of fire hydrants on the repair list for more than 100 days.The city admits it has a backlog of more than 300 fire hydrants in need of repair, down from 800 a few months ago when the I-Team first started asking about it."It is not acceptable," DPW spokesman Jeffrey Raymond said.Raymond said DPW has to prioritize and in cases of emergencies, work is done within 48 hours.What constitutes an emergency?"If there is a hydrant near a hospital or a school or shopping center, where lots of people gather and the need for fire suppression is obvious. That goes to the top of the list," Raymond said.But a hydrant at a strip mall in the 3400 block of Dundalk Avenue was reported broken in August 2014 and a year later, it was still broken.One person is concerned."If there is a fire or something, we are toast because the next fire hydrant is all the way down there," Dundalk business owner Justin Andrews said.The I-Team asked the city about it. Officials said they initially though it was a private hydrant and that misunderstanding may have contributed to the delay in servicing it. They also said it's one of three hydrants within a half-block of the shopping center.Firefighters don't think public safety is being compromised. They point out there is a lot of redundancy built into the system and if one hydrant is broken, they'll hook up to the next closest one, which is what the city says too.Paul Murray, a fire hydrant repair contractor, doesn't think that's good enough."If there is a fire and someone is trapped in a dwelling that person could perish by the time it takes you to drive down hook up to that hydrant and run your hose," Murray said.Murray reported the broken hydrant at the Byron Station Shopping Center last February. The city finally replaced it in June. City officials admit there's room for improvement and tell us they are stepping up hydrant repairs to knock down the backlog.