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As the city celebrated the official reopening Monday of the county fire station damaged in the Hefley Street water tank rupture, officials said a report to be released today found there was nothing that could have been done to detect or prevent the disaster.
“There is no way the reservoir fault could have been found without destructing the reservoir to find out what weakened it,” Mayor Frank G. Fry Jr. said.
The city commissioned the report to find out why the 5-million gallon tank ruptured Sept. 21, flooding a neighborhood and seriously damaging Orange County Fire Authority Station No. 65. The report also is supposed to help the city decide whether to repair the damaged tank or build a new one.
Fry said he had not seen the report, but had spoken to city staff who had seen it as well as engineers who looked at the tank. The fire station, repainted and repaired, was rededicated Monday, as officials thanked city staff for their help.
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