A water main break caused a section of 14th Street NW to collapse Saturday morning, closing the downtown thoroughfare for much of the day and possibly through the weekend, D.C. transportation and water officials said. A leak in a 6-inch water main under the street caused the road to cave in, D.C. Water spokesman Alan Heymann said. Crews Saturday evening were still determining the extent of the damage and how long it would take to repair. Fourteenth Street NW between F and G streets remained closed as they worked to repair the pipe and the pavement and water was shut off to three office buildings in the immediate area. D.C. Water workers will remove the caved-in road pieces, repair the water main leak, then repair the road surface, Heymann said. He said on Saturday afternoon that repairs to the water main itself were expected to take 6 to 8 hours, which is standard for such breaks. Authorities don’t know how long it will take to fix the road.
Officials were optimistic, Heymann said, that the street would be ready for the Monday morning rush hour.
District Department of Transportation spokesman John Lisle said the street caved in sometime before 9 a.m., causing a “rather significant hole” in the road. The damage stretched across at least two lanes of the street.
Both agencies have been providing updates on the situation on their Twitter feeds, twitter.com/ddotdc and twitter.com/mydcwater.
