by STEPHANIE GASKELL and DOUGLAS FEIDEN
A luxury apartment building near Ground Zero was evacuated Monday after a breached sewer pipe sent a torrent of water cascading through the basement.
Gas and electricity were turned off in the 410-unit, 23-story landmark at 90 West St. as the building's basement and garage filled with up to 20 feet of water.
"It's like Noah's Ark down there," Henry Cohen, 62, a retired magazine editor, said of the garage, where his car was parked.
As many as 100 people were in the building at 8:23 a.m. when the floodwaters started pouring in, including a woman with a baby in a stroller who was helped down 17 flights of stairs by a valiant superintendent.
There were no injuries, and firefighters from the hazardous materials unit were eventually able to seal off the 42-inch sewer pipe, said FDNY Assistant Chief Michael Weinlein. After four hours, the flood was over.
The cause was unclear, but the Port Authority has been rerouting a sewer line in the area south of Ground Zero.
The Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the state agency that owns the building, said in a statement that the flooding began "when a sewer main pipe near 90 West St. was temporarily cut and not capped during the relocation of a transformer vault as part of work at the World Trade Center site."
Felix Associates LLC had been retained by the agency to reroute the line, although its role, if any, in the flood has not been determined.
Meanwhile, affluent tenants were uncertain about the fate of their pricey cars.
"The whole garage is under water," said Roe Williams, a 27-year-old graduate student.
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