Water Main Break Repaired, Southbound Colorado Boulevard To Open At Midnight

DENVER (CBS4) - A major water main break that shut down all southbound lanes of Colorado Boulevard between Arizona and Louisiana was repaired on Thursday afternoon but the closure continued into the evening commute. Colorado Boulevard was expected to reopen at midnight in time for the Friday morning commute.

Water was restored to 13 business that were impacted during the break and repairs. Some businesses were forced to close their doors during the water outage.

Dionne Filipek is the General Manager of the Old Chicago on South Colorado Boulevard.

"Yeah no… this is empty, this is not who we are," she said. "I have people that sit here and have iced tea all day for two hours and read the paper...I have people that just sit here and read the paper."

But Thursday, the entire restaurant was empty, forced to close down.

"Staff started to show up and they were a little bit late due to the traffic, asked me, 'What's going on on Colorado Boulevard?' and I said, 'I don't know, but we'll go find out.'"

They walked down the street, and saw what was causing the closure.

"A big, gaping push up in the black top of Colorado Boulevard and rocks and mud flowing down the street."

With no water, the restaurant was forced to close and employees were told they couldn't work.

"My staff makes the guest experience amazing and you can't get that everywhere anymore."

Servers can typically pick up extra shifts to cover the loss, but other staff, like the cooks simply lose out.

"So when they go without a day's pay, it's in all likelihood not made up. We just don't have it to give. Can't put extra hours from today on tomorrow, so that's hard."

A powerless feeling as there was nothing to do but wait for crews to get the water back on.

"Not having anybody in here, it's very disheartening," said Filipek.

The water main break happened Thursday morning and caused significant delays during the morning commute.

In:
• Colorado Boulevard