About 4,500 customers -- a little more than half -- of Shelbyville Power, Water and Sewerage System were without water for 12 hours Saturday night and Sunday morning, after a water main break in a field near SPWSS headquarters.

"Several hundred thousands of gallons" of water were lost, according to general manager David Crowell.

The utility first learned of the break about 6:30 p.m. and began working on the problem. But the 14-inch transmission line was so close to the water plant that there was no way to isolate it, and so the southern half of the system was shut down about 8:30 or 9 p.m., said Crowell. The southern half of the system, with about 4,500 customers, runs from about Legends Restaurant on North Main Street south, said Crowell. The "high pressure zone," north of Legends, was unaffected.

Work continued through the night. The entire system was reconnected by 7 a.m., but it took a while after that for water lines to fill up and the pressure to be restored.

Crowell said the areas affected by the leak were sanitized before being put back into service and there should have been no problem with water quality.

This year began with all of the utilities along the Duck River under water usage restrictions due to drought and the low level of Normandy Lake. That situation has eased somewhat in recent weeks, with the local drought improving from "exceptional" to "extreme" to "severe."

Then, earlier this month, residents of Wartrace were asked for more than a week to boil their drinking water because of a turbidity problem at Cascade Spring. The problem has since been resolved, but the town is now looking at water supply options such as buying all of its water from Tullahoma Utilities Board.