Winchester Municipal Utilities crews were up early Friday responding to two water main breaks simultaneously, one of which affected hundreds of customers.

According to General manager Mike Flynn, a line near the intersection of Old Boonesboro Road and Shanahan Lane broke early in the morning, affecting water pressure for hundreds of homes and leaving about 50 without water at all.

“We started getting calls about it around 4:30 this morning,” Flynn said. “Our first person got here about 5, and we got the pipe fixed around 10.”

Flynn said the break was caused by movement of the ground caused by the extreme cold and warm weather fluctuations the county has seen. The pipe that broke was put in the ground in 1891.

Flynn said homes in the immediate vicinity of the break will be on a boil water advisory for about 24 hours while WMU gets water sample test results from the Kentucky Division of Water.

At the same time as the large break, crews were repairing another broken pipe in a different section of town. Flynn said those two breaks bring the total number of pipe breaks to 14 since the temperatures dropped with the new year. WMU has also responded to more than 500 calls related to frozen pipes and meters and other weather-related problems customers have been having.