CITRUS HEIGHTS

Crews are left to mop up several messy inches of mud after one of the Citrus Heights’ major arteries – Sunrise Boulevard – went from roadway to river Thursday.

A truck was trying to turn into Copperwood Square on Sunrise Boulevard but missed, hitting the driveway and sheared off a fire hydrant instead.

“We probably had six inches to a foot of water at the worst,” Sergeant Michael Wells of the Citrus Heights Police Department said.

And as if an unexpected waterway through town wasn’t hassle enough – blocking and backing up traffic for hours right at the evening commute – there was another issue with that leaking hydrant.

“When that broke,the pipe,  it washed out quite a bit of material from the sidewalk and the asphalt,” civil engineer Stu Hodgkins said.

A sinkhole formed right in front of the Country Waffles restaurant which luckily closes after lunch so no customers were nearby when part of the street and sidewalk collapsed.

While the water has drained away, the hole has to be filled up.

“What we’re gonna do [is] we’re going to come in stabilize the area where the undermined asphalt is and soon as our contractor does that we’ll button it up for the evening,” Hodgkins said.

The headache on Sunrise will continue well into the weekend, crews say.