A water main break in Verona prompted a 48-hour boil water advisory Thursday afternoon, according to town officials. When their taps ran dry, the water bottles came out for 15,000 affected Verona residents.

“The first thing I did was not drink water,” said resident Benjamin Richards. “But then just made sure we had bottled water. Fortunately, we do have some.”

Rushing water briefly flooded Franklin Street earlier in the day. Town officials believe the 12-inch water main break was caused by cold temperatures.

It took about 10 hours to replace the pipe and patch the road. For residents, that meant boiling and chilling pots of water for everything from drinking to brushing their teeth or turning to their stock of water bottles.

While the town waited on test results, officials emphasized that a home water filter alone would not do the job.

“We have already been filtering, but we have to boil it now for at least the next 48 hours,” Richards said. “I'm concerned for any kind of contaminants, maybe from the pipes or anything like that.”

Verona’s was one of several water main breaks throughout the state Thursday that came while many families were home celebrating the holidays.

“I would chalk it up to maybe the infrastructure, depending when it was put in,” said Richards. “It does strike me as somewhat, I wouldn't say suspect, but I think maybe slightly alarming if there are more than a couple main breaks all at the same time.”

Contingency plans are in place to mitigate low pressure during firefighting calls.