Water gushes in South Lake Union area after road crew breaks main

A water main that was broken about 8 a.m. today at Dexter Avenue North and Harrison Street flooded the South Lake Union neighborhood before utility crews were able to shut off the water a couple of hours later.

City contractors repairing the street damaged a three-foot length of the 20-inch line while breaking up Dexter with an excavator. Water gushed out and rushed down Harrison and Republican streets to the west.

Most of the water was shut off at about 9:50 a.m., although utilities workers kept a small amount of water flowing so debris wouldn't get into the pipe.

By 10:45 a.m. crews were pumping water out of the hole in the street, and they expected to restore water service by 6 or 7 p.m.

The pipe feeds parts of downtown, but only 20 to 25 business along Dexter were without water late this morning.

"This is a huge shutdown," said Joe Michelson, water operation manager for Seattle Public Utilities.

At 12:10 p.m., Dexter was open one lane in each direction after being closed earlier to all traffic between Mercer and Harrison streets. The Seattle Department of Transportation is testing the integrity of the east side of the road before opening it to traffic.

"We were removing pavement for street repair," said Dan Trudeau, superintendent for Gary Merlino, the contractor working for the city of Seattle. Merlino has been hired by the city to repair parts of Mercer Street, Dexter Avenue North and Denny Way.

He said the location of the water main was not marked with paint, so workers didn't know it was there, even though they had hired a location service to notify utilities that they needed to mark their underground pipes and lines. While Dexter had red and yellow markings on the street indicating other utilities, it did not have blue markings painted for water lines.

About two blocks away, Mayor Greg Nickels cancelled a news conference scheduled at 9 a.m. to highlight major improvements to city roads that were funded by the Bridging the Gap transportation levy.

"In a city as old as Seattle, you find things under the road all the time," Nickels said. "We'll figure out who's at fault here."

Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle Department of Transportation are investigating what happened.

"This is rare," said Gregg Hirakawa, a spokesman for the city's transportation department. "They're one of the best," he said of Merlino, and the city has a long history of working with them.

Several lots are under construction in the neighborhood, and Sellen Construction stopped all work on its site at Eighth Avenue and Republican Street. Workers at Walsh Construction, building a six-story building called Veer Lofts at Ninth Avenue and Harrison Street, threw down whatever bags they could to keep the water from pouring into the large pit they had dug for a parking garage.

"I just took my dog for a walk, and when I came back I saw a river coming down Harrison," said Nic Rossouw, who is planning to open a coffee shop at 404 Dexter Ave. N. with his engineering consulting business in the back. This morning, he and his wife mopped up water that they feared had soaked into the wood floor they had just installed themselves.

"We did all the work on the weekends" in January and February, said Lori Whiteside, his wife. "That's pretty disappointing."

Black asphalt was piled up in their doorway to keep the water out.

Next door, aikido studio Puget Sound Akikai had just finished its 6:30 a.m. intermediate class when students and instructors saw water coming out of the street. They piled towels around the door and wrung water into buckets. Without a back door, they had to wait until the water subsided to leave.

Both businesses plan to file claims with the city.

The Barking Lounge, a dog day-care center on Dexter, lost its water service this morning but none of the dogs got wet. Construction workers brought the business five five-gallon water bottles.

Sharon Pian Chan: 206-464-2204 or schan@seattletimes.com