A water main break flooded several streets near City Square in the area of 2nd and West Clarendon avenues Sunday.
We are near Clarendon and central.. Big water line break in front of city Square #abc15 pic.twitter.com/aeeGAOFwF3
— Sonu Wasu ABC15 (@SonuWasu) May 15, 2016
The city of Phoenix said a customer fire line leak led to the big break, which closed Clarendon between Central and 2nd Avenue while crews worked to repair the 8-inch line.
Stephanie Bracken with the City of Phoenix Water Department said crews hoped to be done with clean-up and repairs before the Monday morning rush.
The break happened in an area with several high-rise office buildings and the Hilton Garden Inn hotel.
Police put up barricades as the roads turned into rivers. The weight of the water caused a section of the pavement to buckle, and a light pole to lean over.
Water also gushed into a parking garage, though it did not rise to the level to cause any permanent damage to the handful of vehicles parked inside over the weekend.
City workers had to shut down the water in the area for a while, as they repaired the leak. The manager at the Hilton Garden Inn said the hotel lost water service for about half an hour.
Hotel guests stood around on the streets watching the muddy mess.
"I feel bad. You guys can't waste water like this you know, it's pretty sad," said Pat Lee, a visitor from Utah.
Shellee Godfrey, also visiting from Utah, joked that they were now staying at a waterfront hotel.
"Too bad it's red dirt. We cannot swim in it. We were just getting ready to go to the pool, now we can just go to the front yard," she said.
The city will look at maps to figure out which customer the fire line belongs to. It's too early to tell if the customer will be liable to pay for all the damage. Water department spokesperson Stephanie Bracken said crews would have to figure out if the leak was in the "right of way" or on owner's property.
She added their only focus on Sunday night was repairing the leak and getting the roads back open as fast as possible.
