Water is generally taken for granted in American cities and metropolitan areas. So when major pipes break in Atlanta, it has major ramifications:

Atlanta’s Department of Watershed Management announced water service would be halted at 5 p.m. Friday in much of Atlanta, including all of downtown, so crews can work to repair breaks on a 48-inch and 36-inch transmission line “that carries large volumes of water to the metropolitan area.”

Just after 2 p.m., the Watershed Management Department issued a boil water advisory “out of an abundance of caution.” The advisory affects any Atlanta water customers who have experienced a water outage or low water pressure. The order was still in place on Sunday afternoon, even though repairs were completed on the major break near Joseph E. Boone Boulevard. Other repairs were continuing.

More details on water main breaks and pipes in Atlanta:

The problems began Friday morning where three large water mains intersect just west of downtown. Wiggins said at a Saturday news conference that at least some of the pipes that burst were old and corroded. With pipes coming together in a confined area, it was a tight squeeze to make repairs, with only one worker at a time working in the manhole accessing the junction. Repairs were completed Saturday evening, officials said.

Another water main later burst in the city’s Midtown neighborhood, which is studded with new office, hotel and apartment towers. Wiggins said Saturday that officials weren’t sure yet why that pipe had broken. That leak continued to gush through the city streets Sunday. City officials said Saturday that they were working on ways to isolate the leak from the larger water system and were awaiting a part needed to repair to the pipe. Dickens declared a state of emergency so the city could buy materials and hire workers without following the normal purchasing laws.

Faltering infrastructure is a common story in older parts of American cities. Atlanta has spent billions in recent years to upgrade its aging sewer and water infrastructure, including a tunnel drilled through 5 miles of rock to provide the city more than 30 days of stored water. Last month, voters approved continuing a 1-cent sales tax to pay for federally mandated sewer upgrades. The city at one time routinely dumped untreated sewage into creeks and the Chattahoochee River.

What are the odds of multiple major breaks in one weekend? Is the best way to address this to completely update the system?

Vital infrastructure is not just built once and then runs forever. It needs to be maintained. Expanding regions and changing conditions may require major updates. Constructing these systems in the first place required a lot of work; keeping these systems fit for the future may require even more.

Some stories in recent years have drawn attention to urban water issues. Water problems in Flint. Lead pipes throughout Chicago. Drought in California. Addressing these issues might not be exciting but it is essential to current residents, let alone visions of a bright future.

I imagine there is some sort of story that already tackles this but what happens in a large city if there is no water for more than a few days. What happens? Who is prepared?