MILWAUKEE - Residents used to seeing a sewage crew tearing up their street woke up to a much bigger mess in their neighborhood Friday morning.

A water main break at 78th Street and Mount Vernon Avenue collapsed beneath a contractor's backhoe, leaving the heavy piece of equipment dangling over the giant hole for hours.

Click on the link under related content to see video from the scene.

The overnight pipe bust on the city's far west side caused flooding in at least one apartment building's basement and forced the department of public works to shut off water service to homes in three city blocks.

A DPW inspector told TODAY'S TMJ4 that the stranded backhoe made a routine water main bust much worse. A DPW supervisor refused to put his crew in the hole to shut off the water for fear that the equipment would fall. DPW opted to close pipes at other sites surrounding the burst while they waited for the contractor. The peripheral shut offs expanded the number of homes impacted by the outage.

DPW spokesperson Cecilia Gilbert said contractor, American Sewer Services, is responsible for damage caused by the break. DPW staff said the contractor took a long time to respond. Gilbert explained that such companies are told to be on call at all hours should problems arise when they working under a city contract.

The city previously recieved complaints from residents about the digging in front of their homes.

"They're pounding and banging and shaking the whole building," said Anne Mueller, whose apartment building basement is flooded. "I've complained to the city twice. I've complained to the construction crew twice and they've said they do this all the time and there's never any problem in the winter time. And of course now, I have a foot of water in my basement."

People in the neighborhood worried that working on the pipes during freezing conditions could lead to problems.

"How can you do these things in the middle of winter and not have the vibrations affect it some how," wondered Leslie Gannon, who also lives in the flooded apartment building.

Dennis Biondich, owner of American Sewer Services, revealed that his company routinely gets these types of complaints when working in a neighborhood. He claims the city is at fault because contractors are required to pound down the dirt and are not allowed use quieter alternatives when sealing sewer pipes.

Samir Amin, a DPW supervisor, said American Sewer Services agreed to pay for the clean-up in the street and the apartment basement.

A foreman working on the repairs refused to answer questions from TODAY'S TMJ4. When approached by a reporter, the foreman pulled the microphone from the reporter's hand and threw it in a snow bank.

Biondich apologized for that worker's response.