SANTA ROSA – A water main break that caused the early dismissal of the Santa Rosa Independent School District on Thursday is now fixed, according to the city administration.

“We didn’t have any water,” explained Santa Rosa resident Yolanda Saldivar. She said they woke up without water.

“It’s a good thing I didn’t have to work today but then I got a call from school that there wasn’t any water at school and they were going to have early release,” she explained. “First, they had told us they were going to release them at 10, and so those were the plans and then they said no.”

Saldivar had to pick her granddaughter, Cecilia, up from school.

She and around 150 other homes, Jo Nelson Middle School, Santa Rosa High School and the busy Stripes gas station were all left without water after a main break was reported near 7th Street and Jesus T. Avila Road, according to City Administrator Jared Hockema.

Santa Rosa Alderman Jaime Quiroga apologized for the inconvenience.

“Our contractors were working on a drainage project that we have going on,” Quiroga said. “I believe, as they were working on it last week, it may have caused for it to have broken this week. Something may not have been done properly.”

The break happened amid construction of a drainage project that is supposed to alleviate flooding during storm season.

City staff says the crews installed a portion of new drainage pipe Monday, but they hadn’t planned or warned residents of a water outage. They say when people complained, workers tried to get the water turned on as quickly as possible.

By Thursday morning, they were welcomed to work with the news of the break.

Saldivar tells us she wished she had some type of warning.

The city said they used Facebook to spread the word of the issue.

At this point, Quiroga says the water has been restored and everything should be back to normal.