A jury found a private contractor responsible for leaving nearly a quarter-million people across seven South Florida cities without water for days in 2019.
The verdict late Monday in response to a class-action lawsuit means Florida Communications Concepts could be held liable for tens of millions of dollars, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported. A separate trial will be scheduled to determine damages, the newspaper said.
During the weeklong trial, jurors learned that workers for the company believed they had encountered a big rock and drilled a 6-inch hole into a 42-inch main at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport in June 2019.
The drilling affected a line that supplies water to Fort Lauderdale's main water plant, leading to disruptions in all or part of seven cities, plus Port Everglades.
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City workers managed to plug the hole with a log and then encase the log and the pipe in concrete, the newspaper reported.
The jury found the company and a subcontractor 98% responsible for the loss to area businesses that had to be shut down, court records show. More than 9,000 restaurants, law firms and retail stores were represented in the class-action lawsuit.
Florida Power and Light was originally named as a defendant in the lawsuit but settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
