The Wartrace Water crew found, fixed, and repaired all known leaks on their water system Wednesday. The flow and connections were still being monitored to ensure no other leaks surfaced, according to information released by the Town of Wartrace at the T-G’s press time.

Boil water notices went into effect until Thursday morning for Phillipi, Horse Mountain, Foothills, and Earl Smith roads. This is standard practice for any line break without pressure for an extended period. 

A broken water line began causing outages as early as last Saturday morning. Residents were without water for four days. In the meantime, many residents gave Town Hall tips on where they were seeing water gather in fields and ditches.

The line on Lee Road was one of the first repaired. The second line break in the Phillipi, Horse Mountain, Foothills area had been found later that day and repaired in several hours.

However, water pressure dropped when the lines were being flushed, leading multiple crews to look for a new break.

In the meantime, those living in the “boil water for 24-hours” area received door-to-door from the mayor’s office. A limited supply of bottled water was provided at Town Hall, while those with livestock or a water storage tank were able to access hydrant water.

The town thanked all of their customers who had been impacted by this outage. “We know that this was a stressful time for you and your family. We know how important water is and will continue to work for and serve those that are in and outside of our community,” said a recent Facebook post.

The town also was aided in resolving this issue by Wartrace Water Manager Matthew Smith and his operator Kent Phillips, as well as previous water managers Brad Vincent, Bryan Smith, Robert Dye, and Noah and Seth from Rye Engineering, along with Bedford County Utility District.