LONGWOOD, Fla. – The city of Longwood is grappling with a growing number of underground utility strikes tied to fiber optic installation work — and one neighborhood is living with the consequences while city leaders are asking tough questions about what comes next.
City Manager William Watts tells News 6 there’s been more than a dozen incidents involving underground utility strikes so far in 2026, three of which were considered significant.
“These major incidents were tied to WOW!’s undergrounding work while several others involved Lumen and Sentry,” Watts told the Commission at a meeting this week.
Each significant incident resulted in a stop-work order and follow-up meetings with city staff.
“I do want to note that all of the companies involved are properly permitted to conduct the work, and they have been responsive to every issue that they have created,” Watts said.
Watts said Longwood’s approach places the city as the primary point of contact for residents — rather than leaving homeowners to deal with contractors directly.
“We coordinate directly with the installation companies. We inspect the sites to assess damages. We verify repairs that are completed correctly. And we maintain communication with the affected homeowners,” Watts said. “Our goal is simple. We stand with our residents and ensure accountability for those that impact them.”
Commissioner: ‘I don’t have confidence it won’t happen again’
Commissioner Matthew McMillan, who lives near the most recent strike site on Pinyon Court, said he has serious doubts more incidents won’t follow.
“I do not have confidence that it’s not going to happen again once we reopen this. And I’m not even talking about the whole city — I mean just in my neighborhood. That is simply unacceptable,” McMillan said.
The Pinyon Court cul-de-sac, he noted, was the very first one WOW! And subcontractors started work on in his Hidden Oak Estates neighborhood.
“They’ve only just started the neighborhood,” McMillan said. “What’s the probability that they might hit another one? And it’s not just the connections to the house. It’s the water main. If you have the mains, that’s a lot of water — affects the whole neighborhood.”
On Wednesday, News 6 watched as crews showed up to pour concrete over part of the cul-de-sac that was torn up to repair the broken water main last week.
“We had water rushing out through here,” Jon Churchill said. “You literally could have skimboard across through the cul-de-sac.”
Jon Churchill has been watching crews tear up concrete, dig out curbs, and haul away debris. Churchill said the area being replaced has expanded to roughly 80% of the cul-de-sac, but there’s still disagreement between the city and WOW! about how much will ultimately be fixed.
“The city says they’re going all the way. WOW! says they’re not — they’re going to do a certain 50-foot perimeter from the actual point of destruction,” Churchill said.
The cul-de-sac sits at the edge of a retention pond, and the water main break sent water rushing in that direction for hours.
“The situation that we found ourselves in with Pinyon Court is we had difficulties shutting down the water valve,” Watts told commissioners.
McMillan noted the neighborhood was fortunate the floodwater had somewhere to go.
“We were fortunate in a sense that this particular cul-de-sac had direct access to stormwater that ran right to a pond,” he said. “But it was hours of water — and that could have been somebody’s home.”
Churchill echoed the concern, noting that homes on the lower side of the cul-de-sac narrowly avoided significant flooding.
“If it wasn’t for this drain, that house would be three feet underwater,” Churchill said.
Valve failures prompt citywide response
To prevent a repeat of the Pinyon Court response, Watts said the city will proactively test and verify critical water valves in any area where underground utility work is planned — before work begins.
“We are going to proactively exercise and verify critical water valves in areas that we know that utility undergrounding is going to take place so we can ensure that the water can be shut down in a timely manner and reduce the impact to the neighborhoods,” Watts said.
The city will document the operational status of those valves well in advance. But Watts said the plan goes further than just targeted testing. The city is now budgeting for a contractor to perform systemwide checks — testing all 20,000 valves in Longwood twice a year.
Aging infrastructure adds to the challenge
Watts said some strikes occur because recorded utility depths don’t match actual depths, even when contractors are drilling where they were directed.
“Our city has aging infrastructure underneath, like a lot of cities around Florida,” Watts said. “That does play into part anytime you’re doing utility work underground.”
Before any underground work begins, the city activates Sunshine 811, a service that sends locators to determine exactly where utilities are underground
Churchill put it plainly.
“It’s not perfect, right, where you’re just marking stuff with a spray can and saying, ‘This is where a sheet of paper says a line should be,’” he said.
McMillan said that’s exactly the point — and one the contractors should already understand after repeated incidents in Longwood.
“They’ve been here long enough to realize that we’re older, and these maps may not be reliable,” McMillan said.
McMillan said the standard of care needs to be higher — and that paying for damages after the fact isn’t sufficient justification.
“Simply saying that you’re going to pay for all the damages doesn’t mean you just have the right to go in and inflict all the damage that you want,” McMillan said.
Churchill said he and his neighbors just want to make sure their cul-de-sac is fixed and that the repairs are done properly.
How the city holds companies accountable
Watts said anytime one of the city’s utilities is struck, they will take immediate action.
“While these projects bring some risk, we are actively managing that,” he said. “We want to make sure that we understand any lessons that are learned so that we can prepare and move forward and keep our community safe.”
Watts said Longwood adopted an ordinance last year requiring fiber companies to secure a letter of credit before work can begin.
“Any time there is infrastructure damage to our underground utilities, we’re able to require payment in return for the hard work and efforts by our staff to restore services back to its residents,” Watts said.
So far, he said, the companies have been cooperative.
“What we’ve seen so far is the companies are very responsive and willing to work with the city,” Watts said.
“Statutorily, we have to allow these communication companies to come in and work within our right of ways, as long as they are permitted, and they abide by the rules outlined in the permit,” Watts said.
What the city can control, he said, is how it holds those companies accountable when things go wrong.