MOULTRIE — Looking to avoid a repeat of last weekend’s lengthy water outage, city Public Works Department is literally digging for information that would allow it to localize problems and prevent another citywide shutdown.

The lack of water closed the city’s restaurants when thousands of people were in the area for the fall Calico Arts and Craft Shows holiday show.

After a water main burst on Oct. 7, workers were unable to shut off the flow and reroute water around the burst pipe because of insufficient information about the location of valves, Utilities Director Roger King said Thursday. A valve that workers thought would shut off the 16-inch water main instead was the valve for a 12-inch pipe that supplied another street.

King said that since there has been no work done on the 16-inch cast-iron pipe in recent memory, the mapping information was not up to date. The main starts at First Avenue and Second Street and runs to a tank on Second Street and 11th Avenue.

The cast-iron pipe likely was installed in 1949, at the same time the well went in, King said.

In areas where the city has done work, mapping information is up to date, he said.

“We’ve been digging the last couple of days, just confirming some things and finding some things,” King said. “We’re having to dig up particular areas to find out what we have. Most of the areas we do know, just that 16-inch was something we didn’t know.

“This is the first time we’ve had trouble with that 16-inch pipe.”

The city is phasing out the small amount of cast iron still in the ground, which is replaced with PVC, but that work is done in conjunction with road projects, King said.

Shut-off valves also will be installed if needed, he said.

King said he is confident that the department is close to being where a similar citywide outage could be prevented.

“Right now there’s a large part of the town that would die,” he said. “There are steps we’re taking to make sure that won’t happen. Maps are a high priority to us right now. We have done a lot of research to find out what we can do to keep that from happening. At a minimum we can isolate some parts of town and not have the entire town shut down.”

At Calico, crowds were down somewhat from last year, but the economy was to blame along with the water situation in Moultrie, said Gina McDonald, coordinator for the event.

Attendance over Saturday was 13,500, compared to 15,000 for the fall 2007 show, she said. Hotels brought in water and did what they could to meet guests’ needs.

“I know there were people who said we can’t make do without a shower and relocated” to other towns,” McDonald said. “Basically, for what I expected it was nothing. I guess I had prepared myself for the absolute worst. We were down some, but that’s to be expected with the economy.”