The Uintah Street bridge, closed Tuesday evening after a water main break allowed water to engulf its four lanes, is expected to reopen at about noon Thursday.

Sue Skiffington-Blumberg, spokeswoman for the city of Colorado Springs, said gushing water from the broken 36-inch concrete water main buckled asphalt on the bridge, particularly on the eastbound lanes.

She said crews from the city and from Colorado Springs Utilities were expected to work into the evening today and resume work early Thursday to get the bridge reopened by mid-day.

Gabe Romero, a spokesman for Colorado Springs Utilities, said the water main ran under the concrete median separating the eastbound and westbound lanes of the bridge, which crosses Monument Creek. Crews had to stabilize the concrete barrier and then replace the concrete main with a pipe.

Street crews had to tear out about 55 feet of concrete and asphalt on the eastbound lanes to make the repair.

“It was really a mess,” he said.

The closure of the bridge at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday – and the closure of Uintah from Glen Avenue east to Cascade Avenue – led to bad traffic tie-ups in the area.

Skiffington-Blumberg said an engineer had determined late Tuesday that the bridge, built in the 1990s, had not suffered structural damage, But she said the engineer will recheck the bridge before it is reopened.

Water service in the area was not disrupted when the main broke.