A water main break caused Kent Central maintenance workers to shut down a section of East Summit Street from Terrace Road to South Lincoln Street this afternoon.

Jack Hogue, Kent central maintenance manager, said although he had been aware of the leak for a few days, today’s cold weather made fixing the pipe a priority.

“We’ve seen it leak a couple times and then it goes away,” Hogue said, “but we realized this time the leak wasn’t going away.”

Workers could not determine which side of the road the leak had originated from, Hogue said, and would have to dig up the asphalt on East Summit Street to figure it out.

As weather gets colder, Hogue said, older pipes often cannot handle the weight of icy water and may begin to leak. If left unattended, water leaks can cause the road to rise up and eventually cave in.

“(The leak) started heaving the road,” Hogue said, “and we worried we were going to lose the road.”

Water main breaks typically take about four hours to repair, Hogue said, but the break on East Summit Street might take longer because the road will have to be repaved.

“We won’t stop until we fix it,” he said, but he added the road will reopen for traffic by tomorrow morning.

Hogue said he could not estimate the cost of fixing the break and repaving the road.

Contact public affairs reporter Kate Bigam at [email protected].