‘The road looked like the river’: Water main break causes road to buckle in Uptown

Lori Houy
·2 min read

It was daybreak Sunday morning when water started gushing from Miltenberger Street between Fifth and Forbes in Pittsburgh’s Uptown.

James Minervini, from North Huntingdon, was renovating a house on the street and called 911, concerned that the road was going to collapse and swallow up a parked car.

“I saw the water coming down, it was dirty at the time. But the road looked like the river,” Minervini said. “You could actually hear the ground rumbling, where it was washing everything out underneath.”

Because the road buckled, cars parked on both sides of the road had to be towed away.

Crews from Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority responded quickly and immediately shut off the water to the broken six inch line.

Mark Harrison lives in an apartment on the block.

“It’s crazy, my friend called me, and said you have a water main break, you know, and I looked out my window,” said Mark Harrison, who lives in an apartment on the block. Channel 11 caught up with him as he was moving his car to safer ground.

According to PWSA, only a handful of customers lost water service.

“If I don’t have no water, I have family I can go to. So it don’t bother me. No biggie. It’ll come back on soon,” Minervini said.

Water is expected to be restored by 6 p.m.

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