Crews planned to work through the night on the broken pipe.
For more than 30 hours, she went without water at her home in Willow Glen, a subdivision of semi-detached and single-family houses in Ontelaunee Township, because of a water main break in an embankment along Route 61.
About 400 customers in Willow Glen went without water service from about 4 p.m. Monday through late Tuesday.
"It’s like I am living in the ‘Little House on the Prairie,’ " Cavosi said Tuesday afternoon, while water service was interrupted.
The leak was caused by a 2-inch chlorine pipe that accompanies the main, said Kim Mazur, RAWA’s director of operations and maintenance.
"We will do whatever we have to do to make it work," she said.
As repair work stretched into Tuesday, RAWA asked the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection for an emergency permit to divert water from a fire hydrant in the township to provide water to Willow Glen as a contingency, Murray said.
There are a variety of causes of RAWA’s water main breaks, and though the system has some aged pipes, particularly in some city locations, age isn’t necessarily to blame, Murray said.
Some lines have lead-based joints, not mechanical joints, that can separate if the ground moves, according to Murray.
In August and September, RAWA repaired breaks to two major mains under Route 61 in Muhlenberg Township that feed water to much of northern Reading, and Murray blames the ruptures on construction work in the area by a third party he would not name.