A water main break in San Jose caused flooding and damage to roadways south of the downtown area early Thursday morning, according to San Jose Water.
The incident began at about 1:30 a.m. in the area of Martha and South Seventh streets, where a 12-inch water main burst, causing minor flooding and damage to the street, officials said.
For a brief time, the overflow closed down the Interstate 280 onramp near South Seventh street, officials said.
“I heard a ruckus outside around one in the morning, and I peeked out and saw a flowing river flowing down our street,” said Daniel Safradin of San Jose.
He said the rising water flooded his well-maintained garden and the floorboards of his sister-in-law’s car were soaked.
“We have a bunch of ruined cars,” said Safradin. “Our car is probably totaled if the water seeped into the ECU and I’m just hoping they pay for all the damages because this is not our fault.”
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A few houses down, Martha Villanueva was drying out her car, too. She said a neighbor walked through the water to save her car.
“[He] was able to wade through that water and was able to basically bring my car up into the driveway so there could have been more damage but luckily they got it in off the street,” she said.
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Both say this is the second water main break on this street in the past decade.
“This is them not doing preventative maintenance on the system,” said Safradin.
San Jose Water employees used heavy machinery to clear out the soil around the 12-inch broken pipe so they could fix it.
And scooped up and washed off the muck left behind.
“We really thank our customers and community for their patience. We understand that this is very inconvenient and if you have any questions please call our customer service,” said Liann Walborsky of San Jose Water.
Neighbors say they’ll be contacting the company to pay for their individual clean-ups.
The water company said about 24 customers were impacted.
