A water main break in north Denver's Berkeley neighborhood submerged a city block under three feet of water Sunday morning, damaging cars and flooding basements.
Matt Best described discovering the flood as he woke up to walk the dog.
"I saw water from that part of Perry Street heading towards us really, really fast," Best said. "You could hear it. See it. It was rushing water. It started going from a flood to just piling up."
The water trickled into Best's yard and pressed up against a stone fence, sparing the house. But neighbors weren't so lucky.
"It was a crisis this morning. We were sandbagging this neighbor's backdoor because water was rushing into their home," Best said. "Some people were still asleep, so we did everything we could to alert everyone we know, just door to door as it was getting progressively worse. It was happening so fast."
Denver Water crews shut off the 24 inch main and began pumping the water around 11:00 am Sunday, but flooding persisted for at least three hours leaving behind mounds of mud that caked the street more than a foot deep at times.
Police shut down traffic from W. 45th Avenue to W. 46th Avenue, and N. Perry Street to Raleigh Street. It is not clear how many residents were affected by the flooding. Denver Water officials say there are no current water outages at the time, but Regis University said water is shut off on campus.
Denver Water said crews will begin repairing the main after flooding subsides, but did not give a timeline.
