Pleasant Hill water line break causes sinkhole
Crews are making progress on a major water main break in Pleasant Hill. (KGO-TV)
by Sergio Quintana
Saturday, July 02, 2016 07:39PM
PLEASANT HILL, Calif. (KGO) -- Crews are making progress on a major water main break in Pleasant Hill.
The break happened Friday night and it sent water flowing, flooding the roads and some nearby business properties.
The southbound lanes of Contra Costa Boulevard will likely remain closed through Sunday. Crews are still repairing the damage caused by a water main break Friday night.
"They'll be most likely be working throughout today into tomorrow. I don't have a final time line but we will keep people updates as repairs are getting close," said Jennifer Allen of the Contra Costa Water District.
When the water main broke, water began pushing up to the surface causing a flood. But it also created a pretty big washout hole and that became another problem. Crews were able to isolate the aging cast iron pipe, that's probably about 60 years old.
Crews turned off the water and have been working on fixing the damage ever since. Several local businesses got flooded.
"There's water in the store, completely, completely submerged. But everything was protected, no problem. There's some minor soaking on a couple items," said business owner Dan Fan.
It's not clear yet just how many businesses had water damage but an employee of a couple properties said the water in some spots last night was up to his knees.
Crews will take a couple days to fix the street damage because they will have to back fill the dirt that was washed up by the break and caused the hole. Drivers Expect southbound Contra Costa Boulevard to be shut down through the weekend.