Published on: Monday, January 24, 2011

By Paige L. Hill

The Capital Beltway’s inner loop finally opened two lanes to thousands of stranded commuters early this afternoon, following the 54-inch water main break which leaked several million gallons of water, according to John White, spokesman for the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission.

The break, which exploded just before 4 a.m. today in the 9200 block of East Hampton Road in Capitol Heights, closed down the Beltway between Central Avenue and Richie Marlboro Road for hours — halting Prince George’s commuter traffic for several hours. By 2 p.m., it remained unclear how or why the break occurred.

“Basically, we are dealing with an emergency situation right now, and the investigation as to how this happened will have to wait,” White said today. “We don’t know if it’s because (of) the cold.”

To make matters worse, because the 40-year-old main burst when District-area temperatures reached a low around 18 degrees, the several million gallons turned to ice on the roadways, making driving a treacherous and fatal endeavor. State Highway crews turned out with hundreds of pounds of salt to coat the area, SHA spokeswoman Sarah Mettil said.

“We got the call early this morning asking for assistance, and the crews have been out there lending aid for several hours,” she said. “It’s very tedious work, and it sounds like every time they make some progress there is more water to deal with.”

WSSC crews were finally able to turn off valves to stop the flow of water around 1 p.m., White said, after nearly seven hours of struggling with the gushing valve.

“It’s been like ‘one step at a time’ because until we got that valve closed it was nearly impossible to work on the cleaning up and getting people back on the roads,” White said.

The next step, White added, is getting water pressure back to normal to the thousands of Prince George’s customers who have been seeing barely more than a dribble out of faucets.

“I can’t tell you when that will be back to normal or if customers are going to have to do without water service for a few hours tonight, it’s really unclear at this point,” White said.

The Prince George’s County Police Department could not release an accurate number of injuries as of 1 p.m., but it did note a number of vehicles and office buildings situated near the break were damaged greatly.