D.C. Water tweeted photos of cracks on the roadway inside the 3rd Street Tunnel.

/ D.C. Water

Update: As of Tuesday afternoon, the southbound 3rd Street Tunnel was reopened and accessible from Massachusetts Ave., according to DC Water. The New York Ave. exit and entrance remained closed.

As of Tuesday morning, the road northbound into the 3rd Street Tunnel from I-395 and I-695 to the Massachusetts Ave. exit had also reopened.

Original:

A water main break in the southbound lane of the Third Street tunnel at Fourth Street and New York Ave. NW has caused multiple street closures around the area since Monday morning—and as of Tuesday morning, DC Water said it had yet to identify the exact cause or location of the break.

“The location is challenging due to the fact it is in the tunnel and there are other utilities and infrastructure to deal with,” DC Water wrote on Twitter Tuesday morning. “We do not have an indication of the cause yet or an estimate on how long the repairs will take.”

D.C. police tweeted about the multiple street closures at around 7:45 a.m. Monday and encouraged commuters to take alternate routes for their daily commutes. A video from MPD on Twitter also showed flooding and debris in the tunnel with water bubbling up from a crack in the cement.

Assistant Police Chief Jeffrey Carroll, who was at the scene of the flooding, told WTOP that “the roadway in the tunnel was starting to buckle a bit” because of a possible sinkhole. John Lisle of DC Water later clarified that it was water coming down the tunnel walls —not a sinkhole —that caused damage to the asphalt of the roadway.

No one was hurt in the tunnel, and DC Water says repairs are underway.

Around 11 a.m. Monday, K Street NW was reopened in both directions, according to police. D.C. Water tweeted photos of the damage in the tunnel at 11:47 a.m. which show large cracks on the roadway. Officials said they are continuing to investigate the source of the water leak.

About 368 apartment units in nearby buildings had either no or low water pressure as a result of the leak on Monday. DC Water said all customers had their service restored as of Tuesday morning.

Initial road closures, seen on the map below, blocked off significant portions of the surrounding area.

The Metropolitan Police Department has been updating the list of road closures in a Twitter thread. As of Tuesday morning, the road northbound into the 3rd Street Tunnel from I-395 and I-695 to the Massachusetts Ave. exit had reopened, but the New York Ave. exit remained closed.

The sinkhole comes after a $1.3 billion construction project, known as Capitol Crossing, in which the ramp to the Third Street tunnel was replaced and a new ramp on Fourth Street and Massachusetts Ave. NW was added in 2017. Five mixed-use buildings above I-395 are in the works, that will connect the Capitol Hill and East End neighborhoods.

Speaking at a press conference Monday evening, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said the tunnel leak highlighted how “as a country, we need to be very focused on water infrastructure.

“This is an example of when that infrastructure fails, the ripple effects that it can have,” Bowser said.

This isn’t the first infrastructure issue the District has had this summer. In June, the pedestrian bridge over DC-295 connecting Kenilworth Avenue and Polk Street in Northeast collapsed and injured five people after a multi-vehicle collision pulled the bridge off its moorings.

This story was updated to include additional information about the cause of the damage to the tunnel and continued closures. 

Filed Under: 3rd Street Tunnel, d.c., district, sinkhole, traffic,