A section of roadway near Holden and Slade streets in Belmont gave way on Sunday, September 27, trapping an SUV during a coastal storm. The cause of the collapse had not been determined, according to WHDH 7News.
The sequence began about an hour after a neighbor called police to report water coming from beneath the road, WHDH reported, attributing the account to Elaine McCarty. The report said the SUV went down when the weakened roadway collapsed under it. Its tilt prevented the driver from opening a door, and police helped the driver out through the passenger side before placing them in a cruiser to get out of the rain.
Storm context is not a confirmed cause
Belmont’s BEMA warned on September 25 that a long-duration coastal storm was expected to affect the Commonwealth from that evening through Monday, according to the Town of Belmont. Preliminary National Weather Service climate data recorded 1.50 inches of precipitation at its Boston station on September 27; that station total is not a measurement for Belmont and does not establish why the road failed.
A separate Greater Boston collapse illustrates why the cause of each incident must be established on its own: The Associated Press reported that a water-main break caused a sinkhole that swallowed a vehicle in Boston’s South End on August 15, 2022. That documented cause does not show what happened beneath the Belmont roadway.
As of Sunday night, further details about the driver’s condition, the size of the collapse, its cause, and the road’s repair timeline were not available.
