A water main break in Shenandoah has schools switching to virtual learning, fire crews adapting, and one major business pausing operations.

SHENANDOAH, Pa. — UPDATE:

Officials say water pressure has been restored to the Shenandoah area following a water main break on Monday.

The boil advisory remains in effect as Aqua Pennsylvania conducts water testing on Thursday.

This is a developing story; check back for updates.

“Terrible, no water to flush the toilets, nothing,” says John Reese of Shenandoah.

It’s been a rough couple of days for folks in Shenandoah, relying on tankers and bottled water after a water main broke on Monday. 

“It’s frustrating, I mean, I get it, it’s not Aqua’s fault because the pipes are frozen, they have to find where the leak is, but it’s frustrating,” Ashley Mekosh of Shenandoah.

The Shenandoah Valley School District tried to stay open since they had water, but on Tuesday, they saw their water pressure drop too.

Shenandoah Valley Superintendent Brian Waite says, “Once we had that problem, we had to make a decision to dismiss early.”

After the district dismissed school early, they decided to have virtual schooling on Wednesday and Thursday.

“From there, we’ll just wait and see if they’ve located and targeted the areas of leakage in the water system and the water supply within the community, and then we’ll make determinations from there,” says Waite. 

While the water main is still being repaired, firefighters are taking extra steps to make sure they can still respond to calls.

Chief Rick Examitas, Shenandoah Borough Fire Department, says, “We have pre-plans in place with tankers, we have our neighboring towns already on automatic response for any type of residential or commercial building fires we have. We also have fill sites in the event that we do have a fire.”

The water main break also forced a large business in the area to temporarily shut down.

“It takes a decent amount of water to get our product prepared and on shelf and everything, so we are affected by this, but in terms of safety and supporting the community, we want to do whatever we can to help the residents of Shenandoah and get everything back up and running, and then we can start making pierogies again,” says Meghan Heim from Mrs. T’s Pierogies.

Crews from Aqua Pennsylvania have been working to find the water leak. There hasn’t been an update on when folks will see water flowing again.

“Hopefully not too much longer, I would think they should be able to find it in this period of time,” says John Davis of Shenandoah. 

For more information, head to Aqua Pennsylvania’s website by clicking here.