NORTH ADAMS — The city's notice to boil water remains in place, but no new breaks or leaks have occurred since a series of water main breaks over the weekend had municipal workers flipping between plowing snow and fixing pipes.

This morning, Mayor Jennifer Macksey said the broken pipe on American Legion Drive was fixed on Monday and water pressure to the Wheel Estates mobile home park on Church Street was also restored Monday night.

Today, city crews are on State Road (Route 2) searching to pinpoint the source of a water main leak that has disrupted water service to customers living in the vicinity.

"We still have not located it," said Macksey. She said the city also is working to determine the status of water service to residents on nearby Roberts Drive.

City crews aim to keep one lane along the road open as they search. If it becomes necessary to shut down State Road and direct a detour, an alert will go out citywide through CodeRED. The link to sign up for alerts is on the city website under "CodeRED."

The old water pipes typically act up during cold weather, said Macksey, but this weekend was challenging because several breaks happened at once. Often when there is a water main break, crews have time to rest before tackling the next one.

"What was out of the ordinary is we had three issues at once, but that doesn't mean that could not happen again," she said. "This was just pop-pop-pop."

Snowfall on Sunday strained crews even more, who now had to plow and work on fixing pipes.

"It was an unfortunate situation," said Macksey. North Adams had received help from neighboring towns like Clarksburg, Adams and Williamstown, which lent equipment.

Once the city finds the leak on State Road, Macksey said it will fix it and then sample the water to determine to if it is safe to lift the boil water notice.

A loss of pressure can result in a backflow of water through and into the distribution system and that may result in bacterial contamination, the city said. That's why the department is advising customers to boil their water for at least a minute and discard any water collected on or after Sunday, including ice cubes.

The boil water notice was issued citywide as precautionary measure although no samples have confirmed the presence of bacteria. Those who lost water or proper water pressure should be most worried about boiling water, but even then, said Macksey, "how are residents going to know if they lost pressure during the night?"

"I always like to err on the side of caution," she said. "My dog is drinking bottled water right now."

A CodeRED alert will be sent out to notify residents when the boil water notice is lifted.