Water main break leaves sinkhole, causes closures
Cleanup continued Sunday afternoon along Court Avenue after a massive water main break this weekend.
Some businesses were back open, while others still have a lot of work to do.
Bernardo's Burritos is still closed because it is below ground level. Businesses above ground were able to reopen Sunday.
Fourth Street is closed down and there is a gaping sinkhole in front of The Royal Mile.
There is a boil-water order for some of the buildings. The Royal Mile, Java Joe's and Fong's Pizza were forced to shut down Saturday but were back open Sunday.
"I anticipated we'd be closed for a couple of days," said Gwen Page, managing owner of Fong's Pizza. She said she's sympathetic for the owners of Bernardo's Burritos, which took on a lot of water.
Page knows how bad a water main break can be.
"This was a cakewalk compared to the 2012 water main break," Page said. "That was 8 feet of water immediately up to our dining room. This was an inch or two."
North of Fong's, Vivian's Diner & Drinks was celebrating its two-year anniversary Saturday when the water main ruptured.
Owner Jeff Duncan saw water rushing down Fourth Street and could only think the worst.
"It would have been bad," Duncan said. His business slowed down, but it did not close for the day.
Duncan called the water main break a "serious situation" and said the timing could not have been better because the downtown farmers' market just wrapped up for the day, and people were leaving.
"There were vendor tents on top of that," Duncan said. "Those people could have fallen in." He said there were around 300 people on one of the main thoroughfares.
Business owners and witnesses praised city employees for quickly responding, making it possible for the businesses that were not waterlogged to reopen Sunday morning.