WATER MAIN RUPTURE SHUTS DOWN I-5 NORTH
Separate downtown break causes pavement to cave in at 11th Avenue and A Street
A stretch of freeway through downtown San Diego was underwater most of Monday, flooded when an aging water main broke along a hillside and sent a torrent of water gushing onto the roadway for several hours.
The infrastructure failure — one of two old pipes to burst within blocks of each other Sunday — forced all northbound lanes of Interstate 5 near Fourth Avenue to shut, snarling traffic far beyond downtown and sending travelers seeking alternate routes to San Diego International Airport at the start of the busy Thanksgiving travel week.
The other broken pipe, at 11th Avenue at A Street, cut off water for businesses and several residents, prompting city officials to bring in a water wagon and hand out bottled water. Service to all customers was restored by Monday evening.
It took several hours for crews to get valves on the 62-year-old pipe alongside the freeway to properly close after it burst on a hillside near the transition road from state Route 163 to Fourth Avenue, Mayor Todd Gloria said.
Once they finally got the valves shut, it took several more hours for the water to clear out of the pipes — and as it did, rushing water continued to spew onto the slope and freeway through early Monday afternoon.
With water no longer jetting from the 24-inch-diameter pipe, Caltrans crews started clearing the roadway — not just pumping the water and cleaning debris, but assessing any damage the flooding may have caused.
The stability of the soaked slope will also have to be assessed before repair work on the pipe can begin.
The water was so deep near First Avenue that a car was submerged, said California Highway Patrol Officer Jim Bettencourt. As the water level dropped late Monday afternoon and into the evening, a Caltrans freeway camera revealed more and more of the vehicle.
“There’s just so much water, the drains are having a hard time keeping up with it,” Bettencourt said. “Caltrans and everybody else out there are working really hard to try to open (the freeway).”
Caltrans tweeted that some lanes of northbound I-5 could open overnight.
Although water was restored to customers, water pressure in the area plummeted after the two pipes broke, leading to boil-water orders for nine nearby addresses.
Gloria has spotlighted the need for infrastructure investment. “People tell me a lot that infrastructure is not sexy,” said Gloria. “It’s pretty darn sexy when things like this happen.”
The mayor said the city has been replacing cast-iron pipes, but “this is not a swift process.”
“Ideally we would get to them before you have these kinds of disruptions,” he said. “But we are not there yet. We have to continue to do this work.”
Neither of the broken pipes was on the short list for scheduled fixes.
The first pipe burst around 3:30 p.m. Sunday at 11th Avenue and A Street. Water rushed down the streets, created a sinkhole and flooded at least one business. Crews had the pipe shut down a little more than three hours later.
That 16-inch-diameter, cast iron pipe is also aging — it’s 76 years old. Gloria said crews installed a new section of pipe there.
The second main — the one near the freeway — burst shortly before 7 p.m. Sunday. When it blew, it sent rocks and other debris raining onto the northbound lanes of I-5.
One motorist, an Uber driver, told the CHP that water broke through his windshield, injuring his passenger. Several other vehicles in the area also were hit by debris, according to a CHP online log.
Drivers on north I-5 were diverted to northbound state Route 163, and traffic headed north from South Bay slowed to a crawl.
“Hopefully, people are off this week so maybe it isn’t as bad as it could be, but yeah, I feel bad for anybody coming out of the South Bay,” CHP Officer Mark Latulippe said.
City public utilities spokesperson Arian Collins said it was too soon to tell if the two pipeline failures were related.
By midmorning Monday, crews had cleaned up most of the water at 11th Avenue and A Street — the scene of the first pipe break — and traffic was flowing without major delays onto the northbound entrance to Route 163.
Still, the mess had left many scrambling to adjust.
Brian Boyle, who lives in an apartment complex on 11th Avenue and B Street, said he stayed at a nearby hotel because the flooding was too severe to enter his building safely when he came home Sunday.
“I’m still wearing the same clothes,” he said.
One block west of the rupture, Olivia Cabrera, manager of the Best Western Cabrillo Garden Inn, said three customers at her 30-room hotel checked out early because their rooms did not have water. She started providing guests with bottled water.
Upland resident Mia Lujan arrived Sunday night at the Best Western to take her daughter to the San Diego Zoo and was confronted by the soggy streets.
“We got off the freeway, we saw the water flood, we saw everything, but we said, ‘We’re just gonna come anyway,’ ” she said. “There’s still no water, but we had a wonderful breakfast. They provided us with everything they possibly can to help us.”
San Diego Downtown Lodge on 10th Avenue also lost guests because of the lack of water.
“They are calling and saying, ‘Where is the water?’ They are asking how long it will take and what we can do,” the hotel’s front desk clerk said before water was restored. “We are just, hey, we don’t know.”
An airport employee said she scrambled out the door for work Monday morning when she saw news of the closure, thinking — correctly — that the traffic backup would be awful.
“I didn’t even get ready. I just put my clothes on and said, ‘I’ll put my makeup on when I get to work,’ ” said Micaela, who declined to provide her last name.
She also warned her daughter in La Jolla about the traffic, so her daughter could get to work on time.
“(My daughter) just texted me right now and said, ‘You know, I’m so glad you told me because everybody got here at 10 a.m.’ They were supposed to start 8 a.m.,” Micaela said.