Main Street is back open to traffic this morning

8 a.m. update, Main Street is back open to traffic this morning. 

A water main break at 4400 Main Street in Manayunk shut down traffic from Levering Street to Green Lane yesterday afternoon and through the evening. 

Philadelphia Water Department spokeswoman Laura Copeland says 10 commercial properties were affected by the eight-inch water main break and crews were on site to help pump water from basements.

Jamie Blood, employee of Main Street Music, said some water flooded into the shop’s basement but it never reached the actual store. She first noticed the flooding around 2:30 p.m. yesterday.

“I had a customer looking at some vinyls and his friend, who was sitting in the car, came running in saying ‘we gotta go, it’s flooding!’ so we ran to the door to see what was going on,” Blood said. ” At first, I didn’t know where the water was coming from, the river or what, and then I saw it coming from near the fire station.”

Matt Kriebel, owner of Spectrum Scientifics on Main Street said he heard cars trying to make their way through the water earlier in the afternoon. When he walked out of his store, he noticed water “splashing out of the ground.”

Copeland says there is no clear cause of the water main break yet and added that clean-up could take up to eight hours.

NewsWorks will continue to follow this story as it develops.