Officials say the water transmission main broke around 2:30 a.m. at 64th Street and Lindbergh Boulevard.
PHOTOS: Water rushes through Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood
Police officers went door to door to as many as 50 homes, waking residents to alert them to the problem. A temporary shelter has been set up for the people whose homes are hit by the rushing waters.
The shelter is at the Thomas Morton School at 63rd & Elmwood streets.
Some people left their homes while others chose to stay, but gas and electric service has been turned off to the area.
Some of the homes had between 2 to 4 feet of water in their basements.
Workers were able to get the water stopped, and were in cleanup mode by Wednesday afternoon.
"Not again!"
Action News was there in July as the same section of Philadelphia was hit with a similar water main break.
That problem on July 10th happened around 4:30 a.m. near the intersection of 63rd and Lindbergh Blvd.
The fact that they have to deal with this situation again in such a short time period has people living there understandably upset.
"I'm mad. I'm really mad," said Claritha Brown.
"Not again! I want to move," said Mary Bradley.
The Water Department says it won't know what the problem is until workers can dig under the street and get a closer look.
"We won't know until we can dig in and see what's what," said Deputy Commissioner Debra McCarty.
The city says it intends to reimburse homeowners for Wednesday's losses. However, some are skeptical since they haven't been compensated for claims from July's flood.
The water department says those people haven't been forgotten, saying the process takes time. About $100,000 in claims were taken from the July incident, but the department couldn't say how many had been paid out to date.
Problems at the airport
The broken watermain caused problems at Philadelphia International Airport. There, water pressure dropped so low that some restrooms and restaurants had to be closed for a period of time.
