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Subway Service Restored After Water Main Break

By DNAinfo Staff on September 20, 2011 8:12am  | Updated on September 20, 2011 8:59am

Flooding reached as high as ten feet after the water main break, according to the MTA.
Flooding reached as high as ten feet after the water main break, according to the MTA.
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Metropolitan Transportation Authority/Patrick Cashin

UPPER WEST SIDE — Full service resumed on the A, B, C and D lines early Tuesday morning after it was snarled for nearly 18 hours by a massive water main break on the Upper West Side.

New York City Transit employees worked throughout the night to bring the trains back online in time for the morning commute, pumping floods as high as 10 feet off the tracks, according to MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz.

By 5:22 a.m., the B and C local lines, which had been suspended since the water main broke the previous morning, were running without delay, Ortiz said. The A and D express trains, which had been running local and skipping stops between midtown and the Bronx, were also back to full service by that time, according to the spokesman.

The trouble began when a nearly century-old water main, buried beneath the intersection of Central Park West and 106th Street, broke shortly after 11 a.m. Tuesday.

The geyser that resulted ruptured the asphalt above it and sent a flood of water cascading northwards towards Harlem.

Traffic was halted, basements were inundated and waters as high as 10 feet flooded the nearby subway tracks, connecting the 103rd and 110th Street stations, according to the MTA. The water levels neared four feet as far away at 125th Street, the agency noted.

Pumps removed the water at a rate of 6,000 gallons per minute, but it took nearly 18 hours before subway service was fully restored, according to the MTA.

A gigantic crater remained at the site of the broken pipe Tuesday morning, as workers labored to replace the 34-inch vessel that had crippled transportation the previous day.