TYLER, Texas — Crews will continue to work to fix a pipe that’s causing thousands of residents in west Tyler to be under a boil water notice.
Kate Dietz, City of Tyler director of utilities, said there are 3,404 connections or meters that have been affected.
"So if you want to multiply that to three people per connection, that’s nearly 10,000 customers that would be affected," Dietz said.
The business that it happened right outside of, Sam’s Club, had to shut down it’s deli all afternoon because of it. The city doesn’t quite know what caused the break, but they know what broke.
"So there’s the 18-inch line that dead-ends up to a cap, and that cap came off that 18-inch line. So there’s construction in the area, but we don’t now in particular what might have caused that. Also the line was put in in 1955, so it’s an old ductal iron line," Dietz said.
The impacted area is vast, its southern most point reaches just past the West Southwest Loop 323, and goes up all the way north past State Highway 64 and beyond.
"There’s a little bit inside Loop 323, and then it goes out actually all the way to the airport, because some of the lines that are out there are supported by that 18-inch that broke," Dietz said.
It could be up to three days before the water is safe to drink again, in the meantime city officials say showering should be OK and people's dishwasher will still work.
"Anything where you think I’m going to be putting it in my mouth and I’m going to be consuming it, that’s really where we’re asking you to use precautions," Dietz said.