WATER UPDATE: City advises limiting water use and maybe boiling it
More than half the city affected by broken water main, according to new map from water department
Good evening! Today is Monday, October 18, 2021, and we’re coming to you with MORE HOT BREAKING WATER NEWS.
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City issues advisory on water use; says service should be restored in next 24-48 hours
by Tony Mecia
The city of Charlotte is urging residents to conserve water and to consider boiling it if they had problems with water pressure.
In an advisory issued Monday night, the city’s water department said:
In an abundance of caution, customers who were affected by low or no water pressure can boil water used for human consumption (including drinking, making ice, brushing teeth, washing dishes and food preparation) vigorously for (1) one minute.
It also said that “water customers are strongly urged to conserve water whenever possible.”
It said it expects normal operations to be restored in the next 24 to 48 hours. Some residents reported that their water service had already returned to normal.
The water department also provided a map that showed the areas in Charlotte that are affected — and it is basically more than half of the city. The area affected, the city said, is bounded by I-85 and Brookshire to the north, W.T. Harris Boulevard and Monroe Road to the east, the Catawba River to the west and the S.C. state line to the south:
The break in the water line on Remount Road in west Charlotte took place at about 6 p.m. on Monday. Video footage showed water shooting high into the air. Ledger reader Tate Moody shared this video, which she took from Revolution Park:
Jokes roll in: The Charlotte Squawks Twitter account referred to the water show as “Remount Vesuvius,” a reference to the Italian volcano that erupted in 79 A.D. and covered the city of Pompeii in ash.
At Monday’s City Council meeting, Mayor Vi Lyles said, “I've never seen anything get that high in Charlotte,” leading alternative publication Queen City Nerve to joke that she must have missed last week’s concert by Dead & Company, a band composed of former Grateful Dead members.
Airport, restaurants disrupted: The break in the line briefly halted flights at Charlotte’s airport. At about 8 p.m., the airport said flights had resumed and that bathrooms were being “used sparingly” and that it asked the airlines “to tell passengers to use the restroom on the aircraft prior to arrival”:
The lack of water also led some restaurants to close early, and it prompted some residents to check their houses for leaks:
“I literally spent 5 minutes looking through my house making sure there were no leaks a little while ago on account of the water pressure,” one Ledger reader in the Cherry neighborhood wrote.
“I was making dinner and wondering what the heck is going on with the water pressure,” wrote one Myers Park reader.
Low-profile department: It’s an unusual moment in the spotlight for the city’s water department. Yet it has an annual budget of more than $500M — about one-fifth of the city’s overall budget — and has 1,019 employees. One of its goals for this year, according to city documents, is to “enhance existing water infrastructure” as measured by the feet of aging pipe it replaces.
At a May meeting of the city’s water advisory committee, a city engineer said the water department operates 4,471 miles of distribution lines, which includes 86,744 valves and 17,873 fire hydrants. The system’s capacity is 174 million gallons per day — far above the 103 million gallons a day that the water system was distributing.
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory