Without water since Sunday in West Side

WEST SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) - A water main broke in West Springfield on Sunday.  Four days later, several homes and an apartment building are still waiting for their water to be turned back on.  

The 22News I-Team discovers why it is taking so long to fix.

Without water since Sunday.  Neighbors on Kings Highway in West Springfield had to find alternative ways to shower, brush their teeth and even flush their toilet.  

"We did not have a toilet, we did not have drinking water", says 97 year old Isabelle Casino.

Casino and her neighbors on Kings Highway in West Springfield have been dealing with water woes since Sunday.

"It's brushing teeth, washing hands doing dishes, showers you know we have kids in the area, we can go visit them", says one neighbor who didn't want us to use his name. 

A water main break caused the problem and until garden hoses were hooked up to a hydrant on Wednesday, none of the homes in one section of Kings Highway had water.

"They've hooked up garden hoses to the hydrant up there, so at least these houses have water, not a lot, but enough to get dishes done which is huge", says a Kings Highway resident.

The houses now have some water that you can't drink, the apartment complex does not.  
If you want to flush your toilet you have to walk outside with a container to a water buffalo, fill up the container and then you have to bring it back inside to use it.

"The only part is no answers, no why?", says Casino.

West Springfield Deputy Director of Water, Jeff Auer told 22News the pipe that broke is from the 1880's.  The pieces needed to replace it are very rare and it took the town some time to figure out what to do because the town has never dealt with an outage of this size before.  Neighbors were given bottled water, but the town didn't let neighbors know what was going on immediately.

"They didn't let us know for three days", says Casino.

Auer told 22News he hopes the water service is completely fixed by Thursday night and at the latest Friday.
 
"You get to a point where you don't expect it to be fixed, you hear, we should have it tonight, we should have it tonight yeah okay", says a Kings Highway resident.
 
A West Springfield deputy fire chief told 22News having the hydrants hooked up to hoses is not a potential fire danger.