Water main bursts on Upper West Side, leaving residents without water for hours

MANHATTAN (PIX11)-- Residents of eight buildings on the Upper West Side had no running water for hours on Thanksgiving Eve.

A 12-inch water main on Central Park West and West 102nd Street ruptured at 1:39 p.m. on Wednesday.

Water flowed onto the street and into the 103rd Subway station for nearly an hour until it could be shut off.

Rohit Aggarwala, the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, said the water main was from 1951.

"There was no construction in the area at the time," Aggarwala said. "The reality is that in a system as large as ours, these things do happen. It's a huge inconvenience; we understand that, especially the night before a holiday."

Subway service on the A,B,C and D lines was suspended due to water cascading from the street above and onto the subway tracks.

"When you get that much water at one time, it does take the debris and everything and rolls it towards the drains, which prevents the water from having a place to go to," NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow said. "So the team was out there, literally digging out, clearing the drains, using manual pumps to remove the water from the system."  

Emergency contractors had to be called in to repair the water main. There is no estimate of when the water will be back on for the eight buildings.

Subway service was restored to the Central Park West line at approximately 6:22 p.m.