Polson City Manager Ed Meece on Thursday tagged the word "historic" onto the list of conditions that led the city to shut off water to 77 homes earlier this week, a measure not taken in recent memory. That's "historic" temperatures along with "historic" visitation to the area encircling the mouth of Flathead Lake in Western Montana. Troubling conditions persisted through June and early July, Meece said, prompting Polson's first round of mitigation efforts July 6, right after the "largest Fourth of July attendance we've ever seen." "All of this started to play against us and once (the city's water reserves) were down, we just could get them back up," Meece said in a phone interview Thursday.