ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Crews are working to get things back in order in the west end of Allentown, after a massive water main break Wednesday afternoon turned the area into a flooded mess.
“[Thursday] is about securing the ground, restoring the street as much as we can. There’s a severe storm coming in, so we cannot be doing paving and additional street restoration right now,” said Susan Sampson, customer care and communications manager for the Lehigh County Authority.
Crews are calling it the most significant water main break they’ve ever seen.
The 30-inch main broke around 12:30 p.m. Wednesday on South 17th Street in Allentown.
“It was a river. It was a river in the alley,” said resident Grace Hochella.
Crews worked to find a quick fix. Traffic was shut down between Walnut and Union as workers shut off water and replaced the main.
The street opened up, partially swallowing two vehicles.
“There was also a postal service van and that’s how quickly it started. They stopped to deliver the mail packages and by the time he turned around, it started and half the mail truck was in,” said Chief Glenn Granitz with the Allentown Police Department.
Thankfully, no one was injured, even though the effects were widespread.
Some basements flooded, residents were without water for several hours, and apartments miles away were told to boil their water. Residents of the Westmount Apartments are still under a boil advisory. Thursday morning, Nestle donated bottled water to those affected at the apartment complex.
Now, crews are working around the impending weather.
“The torrential rains that are expected in the area are definitely a factor in the restoration process. We had set up some temporary drainage along the sides of the street to prevent as much water as possible from going down into where the repair was made,” Sampson said.
Heavy rain and potential flooding is expected later in the day Thursday into Friday.
There’s no set date as to when the street will reopen, but crews are working hard to clean up debris and get things back to normal as soon as possible.
