‘A little muddy red river’: Water main break, flooding shut down part of Queens Road
A water main break flooded a road near uptown Charlotte on Friday afternoon, trapping vehicles in about 3 inches of water and muddying up the commute home for drivers.
The break happened on Queens Road West near Wellesley Avenue in the Myers Park neighborhood.
The flooding forced the closure of the outbound/southbound lanes “until further notice,” Charlotte Water said on Twitter. Drivers were advised to use Park Road as an alternate.
Around 4:30 p.m. Friday, Charlotte Water said in an email to the Observer that repairs could take four to six hours to complete.
“It’s a little muddy red river running down the street,” Kendra May, who lives nearby, told the Observer.
The pipe running down Queens Road West is “very old” and should have been redone years ago, May said. Every time it breaks, the city “kind of puts a Band-Aid on it,” she said.
The Charlotte Fire Department assisted a motorist who tried driving through the water and almost hydroplaned, May said.
May said Charlotte Water told her it intended on doing a big renovation of the pipes on her street before the COVID pandemic.
“It’s just problematic because the age of the pipe,” May said. “Charlotte Water is well aware of these issues. There are issues all the time because they have not remedied the situation, so the impact isn’t just on traffic flow, it’s also on the residents of the neighborhood.”
A Charlotte Water worker arrived to repair the break around 1:30 p.m., May said.
“He’s definitely going to need some big machinery and lots of help from the water department,” she said. “It’s not a way to end your week.”
This story was originally published May 21, 2021 at 3:34 PM.
