ASHEVILLE, N.C. — A North Carolina mountain city where thousands were facing water outages will resume production Wednesday at a water treatment facility at the heart of the problem, officials said.
David Melton, Asheville’s director of water resources, said the production facility in the southern part of the county will come back online Wednesday but the process of restoring service will be slow. Melton said about 38,000 people were affected by problems including outages and boil-water advisories.
Melton said the facility went down Saturday as some filters and other equipment froze. He said the water system can normally function without that plant but that frozen and burst pipes throughout the system drew down the water supply and exacerbated the problem.
City officials said that those who are able to get their own drinking water from stores should do so.
Asheville mayor: Restoring water a ‘critical issue’
About 35,000 people were without water in Asheville on Tuesday and city Water Director David Melton said he believed that number was higher than the day before.
Mayor Esther Manheimer said restoring water is a critical issue, WLOS-TV reported. In a tweet Wednesday, the city asked those unable to get drinking water to call 211 to share their information so the city can help.
Thousands have been dealing with water outages or a boil-water advisory after days of extremely cold temperatures in the mountain city of about 94,000. An advisory to water customers late Monday said the problem has been exacerbated by line breaks due to the temperatures. A water production facility in the southern part of Asheville had been unable to produce water since Saturday.
The southern part of the city was also under a boil-water advisory due to low water pressure, though no contamination had been detected, according to an alert to residents. Residents were asked to conserve water.
Late Tuesday, the city said it anticipated the water facility to produce water at reduced capacity on Wednesday, but those without water shouldn’t expect to receive it for another 24 to 48 hours.
(WATCH BELOW: Charlotte woman dies after getting stuck in New York snowstorm)
©2022 Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/LH3JSJEF3VBLRJLJQESEAG34AM.png)
