Broken water main snarls Route 128 traffic,
cuts off supply to Lexington residents
Joanne Rathe/Globe Staff
Drivers passing by could see water cascading down from the bridge that carries Massachusetts Avenue over Route 128.
A water main carried by a bridge over Route 128 broke today, snarling traffic and leaving about a dozen houses in Lexington without water, officials said.
Bill Hadley, the public works director in Lexington, said the department was notified of the break at 6:05 a.m., and shut off the water at 7:15 a.m. The break resulted in half a mile of flooding on the road.
Hadley said he thought the burst was caused by the cold weather. The pipe was put in place in 1920, and low temperatures can wear a pipe down, he said.
The break flooded both the northbound and southbound left lanes on Route 128, said Trooper Sean Lewis, a State Police spokesman. At 7:40 a.m., the southbound left lane reopened, and 10 minutes later, the northbound left lane was all clear.
"The word got out pretty quickly, so everyone knew to stay clear of the left lane," said Lewis."We had message boards and arrow boards to indicate that there was an issue ahead in the left lane."
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