Officials in Waterbury said they hope to have water restored by the end of this week.
A small, century-old waterline failed and caused a transmission main to explode on Friday night. It left nearly 100,000 people without water.
At a news conference on Tuesday morning, Mayor Paul Pernerewski said fixing the problem has been slow going. That’s partly due to freezing temperatures.
“We are putting the water in in a very controlled fashion at this point, because we want to make sure that we don't blow out any of the lines that have been empty,” Pernerowski said. “If we put all the pressure in all at once, we would run the risk of having other breaks along the way.”
City water superintendent Brad Malay said he hopes to have water from all over the city tested and cleared by Thursday.
“Best case scenario, we are taking samples [Wednesday] morning, having them at the lab early [Wednesday] afternoon, which would allow us to get results 24 hours after that,” Malay said. “I'm going to take representative samples from all three services, low service, and both the East side and the West side of the city. Once those come back and clear, then we should be good to go.”
Water distribution will continue until services are fully restored. Beginning on Wednesday, it will only be done at Municipal Stadium.
Schools will be closed for a third consecutive day on Wednesday. The days will be made up at the end of the school year.
