CLEVELAND — Cleveland Water says repairs are done where a water break shut down part of East 9th Street downtown.
East 9th Street will have one lane open in each direction until the road is restored.
The connection line that broke was installed more than 40 years ago.
Early Friday morning, part of East 9th at Rockwell Avenue was underwater.
Hours later, Cleveland Water said they got the water flow under control. An excavator dug into the hole to where crews could get down below the pavement.
“The water was flowing all the way down St. Clair or down E. 9th and St. Clair all the way to E. 12th,” said Dave Gerber, Chief Engineer at One Cleveland Center.
Cleveland Water said there was a leak on a two-inch connection line, and with downtown having a lot of underground infrastructure, the process has been slower than normal.
“We’ve seen it before,” said Gerber.
Twenty-four years ago, almost to the day, a water main break turned E. 9th into a river. It was an unforgettable moment for some people who still work downtown.
This was in January 2000 in roughly the same location.
Watch our original report from January 2000:
“You could take a canoe down East 9th Street,” Gerber said.
Gerber said back then, the massive break caused water to come in through the garage and fill up the elevator pits.
“The city made this — our lobby — its meeting place. They were here for about a week setting up maps and everything,” Gerber said.
The basement of the Superior Building also took on water during the 2000 break.
The building manager says no water got in this time.
In a statement, the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland says it caused some flooding on the ground floor.
The water main break forced them to close their offices for two days.
“It’s not affecting us, you know, I mean, the traffic, of course,” Gerber said,
But Gerber is keeping an eye on things at One Cleveland Center.
“We’ve been making rounds in our basement to make sure,” Gerber said.
The Catholic Diocese says its cleanup will begin when repairs are done at the street level.
RELATED: Water main break shuts down East 9th Street
