PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A water main break in North Philadelphia has flooded a city block and forced rescue crews to use boats to get people to safety.
The 48-inch water main break at 29th Street and Hunting Park Avenue around 6 p.m. Tuesday, caused street closures and detours.
Elizabeth Anderson happened to be driving in the area, and she told NBC 10 about the frightening moments that followed.
"All this water start coming into my car. So I had to stand on top of my car because I was like, I was going to drown in my car," she said.
Anderson said she was very concerned because she can't swim. A fire rescue crew used a boat to reach her.
Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Adam Thiel said that the department rescued 11 people via boat, and the rescue was a team effort.
"They deployed a boat, a special operations command, and our first arriving companies deployed a boat. We're able to rescue that woman from her vehicle that was trapped in the flood waters. Then there were also about 10 people inside the U-Haul self-storage building, the old Tastykake factory, so they ferried those people, rescued them out of that building," Thiel said.
One U-Haul employee said it looked like Niagara Falls was coming in through the windows.
It took crews a few hours to get the break under control, and they say during that time, no one was injured.
Some residents in the area lost water pressure. The goal was to get their service back to normal by last night.
This area of Philadelphia is no stranger to water main breaks. At the nearby Baker Center shopping plaza, there were three water main breaks from 2014 to 2016.
