Water service was restored Friday night to thousands of people in Cohoes following a major water main break.

Crews rushed to repair the break at the intersection of Berkeley Avenue and Vliet Boulevard. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of water spilled out before it was done.

Cohoes officials say they found the break around 8:30 Friday morning. A valve on Berkeley Street broke on a pipe that’s more than a century old. 

Mayor Shawn Morse says aging infrastructure is to blame for too-frequent problems. He adds that a lot of the underground issues go unsolved, until a major issue turns up. 

"You spend $100,000 to blacktop a road, and then within a week, you find five breaks and you're digging up the blacktop... We need money to fix the underground so that when you black top you're not just wasting the money and digging it up a month later.," said Morse.

A boil water advisory is staying in effect throughout the weekend.