SAN ANTONIO – Two water main breaks on the city's East Side flooded streets and left about 60 homes without water late Sunday night into Monday morning.
San Antonio Water System officials said the first break involved a 12-inch main around 11:30 p.m. on Essex Street between Hackberry and Olive streets.
"All the ground lifted up like a big bubble, so I didn't know if the ground was gonna explode," Bianca Onefre, a resident, said.
Onefre watched from her mother's house on Essex as the street collapsed underneath a front loader.
"It started going down and he started opening up the arms to stop him from sinking all the way in," Onefre said.
The operator wasn't hurt, but he wasn't able to get his tractor out right away.
Water flooded several yards on Essex.
Several hours later, a second, smaller main burst one street on Denver. The second break expanded the number of neighbors who didn't have water to 60.
By 11:30 a.m. Monday, SAWS crews had repaired the broken pipe on Essex but were still flushing the line. That was expected to take more than an hour.
By 5 p.m., a SAWS spokesperson said water had been restored to the area, but that road construction would continue.