HOUSTON -- The owner of a Houston day care said city contractors dug up her fire sprinkler system and then the city threatened to shut her down for having no sprinklers, Local 2 Investigates reported Wednesday.

Houston Fire Marshal's inspectors discovered the sprinkler system was dead during a routine inspection at the Cradles 2 Crayons Academy on Travis Street in the Museum District. The system had passed city inspections over the past several years.

Owner Sophia Davis said inspectors gave her few options.

"We're going to have to close down … until this problem is fixed," she said.

Houston Public Works crews traced the problem to a water line construction project from months earlier. Those workers told Local 2 Investigates that the city contractor dug up and replaced both water lines that feed into the day care.

One line provided water to the sinks and bathrooms while the other water line connected to the sprinkler system. When the contractors finished and paved over the new water lines, the line leading into the sprinkler system was somehow never reconnected, city workers told Davis and Local 2 Investigates.

Davis said she has been getting the runaround for seven days, with some city crews arriving with no answers and other city officials failing to return her calls.

"We have expressed the concern about children being in here if a fire happens, what can happen, and they have done nothing," said Davis. "I feel horrible, especially with tax dollars going to the city of Houston. This is something they should have jumped on the first day we called."

  "We don't want them to shut down," Public Works Department spokesman Alvin Wright said. "We will work with them."

Wright said his department has no record of having a fire line connected to the building, meaning the owner of the building did not follow the proper process to install the line for the sprinkler system to begin with. With no record of the sprinkler line, city contractors would have no way of knowing they had to reconnect it, Wright suggested.

However, Wright could not explain why his department's contractors would dig up the sprinkler line in the street if they didn't even know it existed. He also could not explain how the city fire marshal was able to inspect the sprinkler system each year for several years without his department knowing the sprinkler system existed.

Workers at the scene told Local 2 Investigates that the contractor obviously knew the sprinkler line existed because they dug up and replaced that line. Those workers said the contractor may have buried the valve without turning the valve on.

"I'm assuming that this project was not inspected by the city of Houston to have even passed inspection, because if so, they should have caught the valve being covered," Davis said.

Wright said Public Works crews could probably hook the sprinklers up within 24 hours after working with the building owner to gain the proper permits for a sprinkler system connection.

The Fire Marshal's Chief Inspector Charles Key said he had no information about the sprinklers or the inspections on Thursday.

Davis said she had no idea such a surprise could happen.

"We were floored, because this is something that was never brought to our attention before, and I mean, by the grace of God, we've never had a fire," she said.