CLEVELAND — One day after it was closed to all traffic due to a water main break, the intersection of Madison Avenue and West 117th has reopened at the Cleveland/Lakewood border.
Lakewood police tell 3News the burst happened around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday on the Cleveland side of the intersection.
3News spoke with the city of Cleveland Water Department crew repairing the break. They told us they don't know what caused the pipe to burst. Once they got the water to stop coming out, they began replacing about 11 feet of pipe.
3News' Carmen Blackwell reported live from the scene early Wednesday morning, saying authorities had blocked off the entire area. With sub-freezing temperatures, the area had also become slick.
As crews repaired the broken water pipe outside, Kosta Almiroudis, the owner of one the buildings at the intersection, was assessing extensive flooding.
"I'm up to ankle in water right now on second step," he told 3News after he attempted to go down some basement stairs.
Almiroudis said the building has eight businesses and eight apartments. He rushed to the scene when one of his tenants told him the basement was flooding.
"So, when I got down here, I thought we were going to grab a wet dry vac and pull up some water out of the basement and sweep things up and get the furnaces started again, but when we got downstairs -- well, we never got downstairs -- there was about six or seven feet of water down in the basement," he said. "The furnaces and hot water heaters were covered through the rim, and from what I see outside right now, the pressure of the water exploded the sidewalk."
3News cameras caught a nearby sidewalk buckled near his building.
“As the sidewalk collapsed, it has lifted about two feet,” Almiroudis observed.
He was waiting for the water to recede before he could begin a full assessment of the damage.
"I have no idea what this is going to result in at the end," he said. "We need hot water heaters. We need furnaces. I have the HVAC company, the water department is here, electricians are here trying to get heat into the building via electric, not gas. We're working on it."
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