Water main break damages office building, vehicles

KSDK -- A water main break did significant damage to nearby vehicles and soaked an office building in Shrewsbury Friday.

The break happened on Watson Road just west of Laclede Station.

• Click here for photos from the scene

Water from the main shot high into the air toward a nearby office building, soaking cars parked in a parking garage underneath with water and showering them with small rocks and dirt. Some rocks smashed the building's windows.

Ed Smith captured video of the incident. "I pulled up and it was hitting the roof of the building," he said. Smith said he watched a flying rock smash through a window in the building.

Jelena Aleksic's small Volkswagen GTI was filled with water and covered with rocks. "There was no way to get to the car.. the water was directly on it," she described.

Mark Florence said he tried to save his SUV with no success. "As soon as I got into it the moon roof opened up and it was like the flood gates opened up so I got out of it pronto," he explained. Florence believed an electrical short caused the moon roof to open unexpectedly. When asked to describe the break, he said, "I saw the earth explode."

Crews from Missouri American Water were on the scene trying to fix the break and investigate the cause.