The City of San Diego says that a 12-inch concrete cap broke, but the cause is indeterminable.

by Alex Presha and Rafael Avitabile, originally posted on February 10, 2017

Nearly 200 residents in the Bay Park neighborhood spent the majority of Friday without water after an overnight water main break.

The main broke beneath the street on the 4900 block of Gardena Avenue near Bonus Drive just after midnight.

Residents in the area went 13 hours without running water, and likely would have had to wait longer had it not been for one neighbor’s precaution.

David Sogliuzzo, a 25-year resident of Bay Park, has security cameras surrounding his home. When he looked up at his monitor and saw water flowing down his street, he immediately knew what had happened.

“I just happened to look up at the TV set as I was resting and watching TV,” Sogliuzzo said. “And as I saw it I thought ‘Well, we’ve got a busted water main.’”

Sogliuzzo was able to report the break immediately and crews were tending to the water main within an hour. They worked through the night and into the day, and were able to restore water to the neighborhood by around 2 p.m.

Surely it was an inconvenience, but it could have been worse.

“There’s a lot of old folks in this neighborhood, “Sogliuzzo said. “So they don’t have drinking water, they don’t have water to bathe and shower- it’s a difficulty.”

The roadwork forced traffic diversions, parking trouble and home-delivery hiccups. This isn’t the first time Sogliuzzo has had to deal with this in his 25 years living in the neighborhood, though. He says that in the last two years alone, three separate water main breaks have occurred.

“The city takes care of it,” Sogliuzzo said. “They bring in the water truck, they bring in the crew, but they’ve had to do it more than once.”

The City of San Diego says that a 12-inch concrete cap broke, but the cause is indeterminable. Crews working to repair the break said that it could have been the result of a number of things, including weather and old infrastructure.