Western Blvd. could remain closed at the Beltline for days as water line is repaired
Update: The City of Raleigh said Friday, Jan. 6, that the intersection will remain closed until Wednesday, Jan. 11. For more details, see this story.
Western Boulevard could remain closed at the Interstate 440 Beltline in Raleigh through the weekend after a broken water pipe flooded the area under the bridges on Wednesday.
The road was closed in both directions Wednesday afternoon, and police are encouraging people to avoid the area.
Workers are expected to repair the broken pipe sometime Thursday, said Ed Buchan of the city utilities department. But they had to dig through 3 1/2 feet of asphalt and a concrete slab to reach the pipe and will need to replace that material and repave the surface before the road can reopen.
Buchan said a previous effort to raise the road in a low spot under the bridges may have resulted in the unusual thickness of the asphalt.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, to be honest,” Buchan said Thursday morning. “The back-filling and the repaving, especially in a situation like that, is just very time consuming.”
The city first had to drain the water that had pooled under the Beltline on Wednesday. Though repairs could be completed sooner, Buchan said, the city says now that Western could remain closed until just before the morning commute on Monday.
Some homes and apartments on either side of the I-440 interchange lost water service after the city closed valves leading to the break, Buchan said. He said two valves closest to the break had been paved over.
“That’s not, unfortunately, particularly uncommon,” he said. “But it certainly makes things challenging, and oftentimes you’ve got to find another valve and go further away from the break and shut off the water, which can impact people’s water service.”
It’s not clear what caused the water main to break. The 12-inch cast iron pipe appears to date from the 1950s, and Buchan said its age and the recent swings in temperature could be factors.
Contractors for the N.C. Department of Transportation are rebuilding the interchange as part of a project to widen the Beltline, but no work was being done Wednesday, said NCDOT spokesman Aaron Moody.
“It rained all day. We didn’t have anybody working,” Moody said. “It’s not project-related that we’re aware of.”
This story was originally published January 4, 2023 at 5:59 PM.
