Water main break disrupts traffic on Knightdale Boulevard in Knightdale

Water from a main break slowed Friday morning traffic on Knightdale Boulevard in Knightdale, just off a shopping center corridor between Home Depot and Chick-fil-A. Officials told drivers to avoid the area and expect delays as crews responded before dawn and water spread across the roadway.

The break landed in one of Knightdale’s busiest retail stretches, where shoppers, commuters and delivery drivers move in and out of stores throughout the day. Live video showed crews working in the area while the roadway remained affected, a disruption that could make it harder to reach nearby businesses and complicated quick stop-and-go trips along the corridor. Home Depot’s Knightdale store sits in the same commercial strip, underscoring how directly the break touched everyday errands and retail traffic.

By Friday morning, officials had not said how many customers were affected or when repairs would be finished. The report also did not mention a boil-water notice. That left the scale of the interruption unclear for residents and business owners trying to determine whether the problem was limited to traffic or whether water service had been interrupted as well.

Knightdale’s water and sewer system is owned and operated by Raleigh Water, after the Town of Knightdale merged its system with the City of Raleigh. Raleigh Water says it serves more than 650,000 residents across Raleigh and surrounding Wake County communities, including Knightdale, and says it is responsible for water and sewer main breaks in the street. Customers can report a water main break by calling Customer Care and Billing at 919-996-3245.

The incident also fit a pattern that Wake County commuters have seen before. WRAL’s water-main coverage page has included prior Knightdale break reports in which crews were working on an overnight failure that could affect hundreds of people. Friday’s break showed how quickly a single infrastructure problem on Knightdale Boulevard can ripple through a fast-growing commercial corridor, slowing traffic and disrupting business access before many shoppers had even started their day.