A crew from the city yards was on scene scraping mud off the street in the intersection around a large hole in the pavement.

Nearby, manager Nathan Karr of Fosters Martini & Wine Bar, along with several of his friends, relaxed after a busy day of cleaning up.

“We found out at about 8 o’clock this morning there was a big gush coming up by the fire hydrant on the corner of 8th and Felix,” Karr said.

“Well it looked like Old Faithful,” he said. “I called the owner of the building, and then we called our friends, and we looked in the basement and started pitching stuff out.”

Among that stuff, Karr said they lost everything on the bottom shelf of his liquor room. So is there a bunch of booze in a dumpster somewhere in downtown St Joseph?

“I can’t disclose that,” Karr said, tongue firmly in cheek.

He says they filled a dump truck, plus a dumpster and a half with refuse from his basement.

Bobbi Jo Hughes, the manager at Bliss Salon, said they found about eight inches of water in the basement.

“We lost ten years accumulation of things,” Hughes said, “a different variety of things: Christmas decorations, computers, radios, couches, chairs, tables, cabinets.”

Water also caused damage in the basement of the Candy Shop Tattoo Parlor.

Christie Barnhart of Missouri American Water says the six inch water main failed at about 8 a.m. Sunday. Barnhart says crews were able to repair the pipe and turn water back on by about two p.m.

“Our Loss Control Team will be working with the affected businesses as they work with their insurance companies,” Barnhart said.