Pothole becomes crater in West Philadelphia street

WEST PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- A pothole has morphed into a crater that has swallowed part of a street in West Philadelphia.

The situation along the 4800 block of Fairmount Avenue began with a water main break in February.

Things have been going downhill ever since.

"It caved in. It just fell down, boom!" said one resident, Ryan.

"It's a big crater down there. We've got to go all the way around to get dropped off from hospital visits and stuff like that because you can't get through here," said another neighbor, Deneen.

Ryan said he wasn't pleased with the response from the water department.

"They just passed the buck to the next man," he said. "It's not their problem, they see what they can do, we have to call someone else."

Action News reached out to the water department and got a quick response. They blamed the situation on a taxing winter for city workers, and promised relief was coming right away.

"We did have crews come out and repair that water main. We also assigned it to our sewer maintenance unit to come out and make any sewer repairs that are necessary. Those repairs are done. There is a fire hydrant that needs to be installed. We're going to get a crew out here to install the fire hydrant, and as soon as we're done with that we'll refer it over to the streets department to come out and get the street fixed as quickly as possible," said John DiGiulio of the water department.

The water department says it will investigate why this repair job fell through the cracks. They promised all should be back to normal here sometime in the middle of next week.

------

Send a News Tip to Action News

Learn More About 6abc Apps