SAN DIEGO -- A 200-ton engine for a Navy ship that fell off the back of a truck blocked traffic Friday on a city street in front of the Barrio Logan shipyard and left executives puzzled over how to move the massive machine.

General Dynamics NASSCO officials, concerned about further damaging the multimillion-dollar diesel-electric powerhouse engine, pushed back the scheduled move to Sunday morning, at the earliest, said Karl Johnson, a spokesman for the bayside manufacturing plant.

The engine slipped off the back of a big rig Thursday en route to the shipyard.

The complexity of lifting the engine -- a job that will require at least one heavy-duty crane -- could delay the project into next week, according to Johnson.

The engine, slated for installation in a Navy re-supply ship known as a TAK-E, somehow came loose from its restraints and fell off a slow-moving tractor-trailer at about 12:30 a.m. Thursday, according to San Diego police.

It struck three parked vehicles in the 2700 block of Harbor Drive, completely crushing one and flattening the front of another. A woman sleeping in the partially demolished automobile escaped with only minor injuries, San Diego Police Department Sgt. Rich Nemetz said.

The accident also created a sinkhole in the street and ruptured a 16-inch main buried about 6 feet beneath the pavement, leaving the nearby shipyard without working plumbing for about six hours.

Due to the interrupted water service, the company sent home its first-shift employees, a crew of about 3,000, Johnson said.

One of the two eastbound lanes of the damaged street will remain closed indefinitely, pending removal of the ship component and repairs to the water line and pavement, according to police.

On Tuesday, General Dynamics, which owns National Steel and Shipbuilding Co., or NASSCO, announced it had been awarded a $100 million contract to buy advance materials for construction of another TAK-E.

Three of the nearly 700-foot supply ships have been delivered, and four are under construction as part of a pre-existing program.

Each vessel is powered by four engines like the one that wound up on the street in front of the NASSCO shipyard, Johnson said. The powerhouses are built by a Wisconsin firm called Fairbanks Morse.