Many communities have been suffering with water shortages in our area, due to the pipe break at the Rend Lake Water Treatment Plant. They had a breach in a 36-inch pipe, which shut down the whole system. Ashley, DuBois and Radom were all affected in Washington County from that break, but the issue was resolved. The Washington County Water Company would like to thank everyone who made an effort to conserve water. There is no boil order effective anymore in Washington County. Mt. Vernon and Marion both signed an emergency declaration yesterday, saying that the cities could run out of water. Restaurants, hotels, bars and other local businesses all were forced to shut down, due to the water shortage crisis. Carterville ran out of water and closed their schools on Thursday, after they ran out of water at 8am. Christopher shut off their water at 1pm, due to the low water levels in their storage tanks. Roughly 160,000 customers in the southern Illinois area have suffered from this water shortage. Cities affected include, Benton, Bonnie, Cambria, Carterville, Christopher, Crainville, Dahlgren, DuQuoin, Ewing-Ina Water District, Galatia, Hamilton County, Herrin, Johnston City, Marion, McLeansboro, Mt. Vernon, Mulkeytown, Pittsburg, Royalton, Sesser, Tamaraoa, Thompsonville, Washington County Water District, West Frankfort and Zeigler. The incident occurred Wednesday afternoon, at around 330pm, with workers working throughout the past 2 nights to solve the issue.