PITTSBURGH — A home has been condemned after a water main break caused a landslide from Brereton Street in the Polish Hill neighborhood early Friday morning.
PHOTOS: Water main break causes landslide in Polish Hill
City officials said 253 Brereton Street was condemned and that people who lived there are being assisted by the American Red Cross.
Friday evening, Pittsburgh Regional Transit said part of the East Busway, between the Strip District and Oakland, will be closed until further notice.
The water main break happened just down the hill from Vanessa Cox’s house and caused her house to lose water.
“It’s huge, it’s down what, 20, 30 feet!?” Cox said as she saw the damage to Brereton Street early Friday morning after that water main break. “And my reaction was, “Oh! Maybe they’ll fix it this time!”
She said in the past few months, they’ve had issues where water had to be turned off multiple times.
“I started keeping track of it. Our water was off on Monday the 7, September 27, August 23, and those are just the ones that I found,” Cox told Channel 11′s Andrew Havranek.
Justin Hickey, who lives on Brereton Street, said they had another issue earlier this week.
“I was texting people this week saying like, ‘this road’s going to probably collapse because there’s so much water running underneath of it.’ There’s a shear hillside here that’s just going to erode,” Hickey said.
Now, a massive chunk of that road is down the hill and on the busway causing a bus detour in the area.
People who live on the opposite side of the hole — are stuck.
“I don’t know what they’re going to do,” Hickey said. “They seriously cannot get out.”
“Not with a vehicle,” Cedric Wells added.
Wells just bought property at the end of Brereton Street, which is a dead-end road. He doesn’t live there but was going to get equipment from his shop on the property.
Now, he’s not sure when he will be able to. The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority sent Channel 11 a statement Friday morning.
“Our first priority is to restore water service. Crews are on-site to put customers back in service by late this afternoon. We have an urgent contractor on-site to begin cleanup. The road repair is being assessed and the cause will be investigated.”
“It’s going to take them a second to fix it,” Wells said.
Right now, there is no timetable on when this damage will be repaired or when the busway will reopen.
Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.
Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW
TRENDING NOW:
©2024 Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/XCUXZC2XYZHCRGNNGKFEX6U3LQ.png)
