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Water Service Restored in Warsaw

Water is flowing again in Warsaw after a main leak drained the city's 250,000-gallon water tower and halted service.

Mayor Tiffany Murphy says at this point, if a resident or business does not have water, they should contact the city.

The leak was discovered by a city employee at about 4:00 A.M. on Thursday, but before anything could be done, the water tower was empty and Elevator Hill and Water Street were like an ice rink.

Murphy says water is pumped from the water plant to the tower near Warsaw High School before being distributed back down to customers.  So with an empty tower, there was no water for the city to use.

Murphy says city employees immediately went to work and did an unbelievable job.

"I cannot say enough about the water plant employees," says Murphy, "the four of them plowed through this this morning and it is just incredible how fast they worked.  I am just so proud of them."

Murphy says she was told, early on, that it could be Friday afternoon before the water was restored.  She says in reality, the first homes and businesses were back in service at about 1:00 P.M. on Thursday.

Murphy says the tower is not completely full, but the water level is high enough to restore the service.

She says the bitterly-cold temperatures, Wednesday night and Thursday morning, broke the main, causing the leak.

Murphy says an alarm would normally sound when water levels dipped in the tower, but it did not, resulting in the loss of service.

A boil order is now in effect until further notice.

Jason Parrott is a former reporter at Tri States Public Radio.