HOUSTON — Crews worked into the night to repair a water main that busted in east Houston.
The 96-inch diameter pipe ruptured Thursday around noon on Clinton Drive near the 610 Loop.
“I was just coming outside, getting ready to leave to go to work, and I came outside and saw a bunch of water on the road," said Abraham Castillo, a homeowner, who had a front-row seat to the city’s water woes. "It was sunny, nice and beautiful, and I was, like, man, it didn’t rain, what happened?”
Castillo lives on Clinton and one thing came to mind when his street started to flood.
“It felt like it was (Hurricane) Harvey, it was flooded pretty bad," Castillo said.
For hours, the water kept rising. Three people were rescued, a least a dozen cars were stranded and the East Loop shut down in both directions.
“Our business is open, but there are no customers," said Sadoor Khan, who owns a gas station on Clinton.
This gas station owner forced to make do until the all-clear.
“We just want to make sure everything is OK before we sell the customers gas,” Khan said.
City officials said the problem was a leaky water line. A city contractor, Harper Brothers Construction, was on-site to fix it.
When the contractors moved the dirt on top, the water line blew.
“I kind of had a feeling because we lost water here," Castillo said.
The 35-year line was a main artery carrying water from a plant to 50 % of the city.
“I had to move my truck to higher ground, so it was getting close to the truck and I was like just in case,” Castillo said.
Thankfully, he and his neighbors were all sparred. The water receded, but he saw the need to fix the aging city infrastructure firsthand.
“Hopefully they get this fixed pretty soon,” he said. “(We) Need the water, we need water.”