Five homes in North Adams have been without running water for more than a week as subzero temperatures froze a nearly 100-year-old pipe.Katherine Haig has been melting snow to flush toilets and wash dishes at her Overlook Terrace home. Since her house is heated by steam, three times a day she uses a car battery to pump water from a plastic tank to fill her boiler.
“It’s just stressful for everyone,” Haig said. “We’re all getting to the point where we’re physically exhausted and mentally tired.”
With other water line issues elsewhere in the city, public service workers have been working from 7 a.m. to midnight digging five feet into frozen ground to lay temporary plastic pipe.
The city was expecting to get water running through the line by the end of Tuesday.