Michaela Brockmann was without water and information Wednesday night and most of Thursday.

She knew why she was without water. She has seen the break on Middle Road in East Greenwich and concluded that’s why she lost water in her Cowesett home on Bay View Avenue. She was right. A coupling had broken on a 20-inch main.

But what befuddled her is that the Kent County Water Authority hadn’t made a robo-call or posted anything to its website (until the following day) about the problem or to provide an estimate of when service might be restored. She went on social media and news sites, and found nothing.

“It was a major water main break,” she said in amazement.

A 20-inch line is a big water pipe, but according to authority director Tim Brown, it only services about 150 customers.

“It was isolated,” said Brown Thursday evening. He said he realizes being without water is significant if you’re personally affected, but in context of the authority’s 27,000 customers, 150 is not a large number.

That doesn’t mean the break was treated lightly. Brown said crews worked through the night to repair the coupling that was made all the more complicated by the fact it had been “burned.” He explained because there was a narrow crack in the coupling, the water pressure acts like a knife, burning through the pipe. In order to repair the coupling, five feet of pipe had to be unearthed and replaced. In addition, he said it took nine hours to shut down the line and drain it. Recharging the line, which has to be done slowly so that trapped air doesn’t fracture the pipe, takes another four hours.

What about notifying customers?

Brockmann said she and her husband, Peter, took their kids to her parents’ home in Potowomut to brush their teeth and use the toilet. She wondered if she would have to camp out at her parents on Thursday night as well.

She said she didn’t get any satisfaction calling the authority or from Facebook, where she vetted her frustration. Her husband, Peter, did a bit of reconnaissance and visited the site of the break, learning they expected service to be restored by 6 that evening.

Brown didn’t find the situation extraordinary. He said there are breaks affecting a relatively small group of customers just about every week.

The authority, he said, has chosen not to invest in a robo-call system or service. In instances such as the possible contamination of water that happened earlier this year, Brown said the authority partners with the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency to get out the word to customers.

Service was restored Thursday evening, meaning the Brockmann kids didn’t have to visit grandma to brush their teeth.

As for Michaela, she’s still wondering why there isn’t a better means of being informed about a service as vital as water, and she believes it should be improved.