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SAN DIEGO (AP) – The northbound lanes on Interstate 5 in San Diego were closed for hours on Monday after a water main disruption flooded the major freeway that runs through downtown, authorities said.
The pipeline burst Sunday evening and city crews shut down pipes supplying the area around 1 a.m. on Monday, the California Highway Patrol said. The motorway, entrances and exits as well as the surrounding streets remained flooded at noon.
“At that point, the sewers are simply overloaded,” said police officer Mark Latulippe.
Three lanes north were eventually reopened at 8 p.m., and the driveway from State Route 163 north to North I-5 is expected to reopen by Tuesday morning, authorities said.
However, an exit to San Diego International Airport remained blocked.
The freeway growled traffic and caused major congestion on several local freeways on the first day of Thanksgiving vacation travel week.
The line near the autobahn burst on Sunday at around 7 p.m. and sent stones and debris onto the lanes heading north.
An Uber driver told the CHP that water shattered his windshield and injured his passenger while other cars were hit by wreckage, according to a CHP transcript quoted by the San Diego Union-Tribune.
There was no information about the condition of the injured passenger.
It was the second water line interruption in the city center in several hours on Sunday. Around 3:30 p.m., a pipe burst near the East Village neighborhood, flooding downtown streets, creating a sinkhole and inundating at least one store, the newspaper reported.
About three hours later the water was turned off.
Public utility spokesman Arian Collins said the first pipe to burst was a 61-centimeter transmission line made of reinforced concrete and steel. The second was a 16-inch (41 centimeter) cast iron pipe that was about 75 years old.
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