The fountain is frozen as temperatures hover in the mid-20s at the Jacob Schoen & Son Funeral Home in New Orleans on Dec. 21, 2019. 24, 2022.
David Grünfeld/AP
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David Grünfeld/AP
The fountain is frozen as temperatures hover in the mid-20s at the Jacob Schoen & Son Funeral Home in New Orleans on Dec. 21, 2019. 24, 2022.
David Grünfeld/AP
JACKSON, miss. Days of freezing temperatures in regions of the Deep South, which usually freeze for only a few hours, threaten dozens of water supply systems as burst pipes leak millions of gallons of water.
The problems were happening on Monday in major troubled water systems like Jackson, miss, Where residents had to boil water over Christmas for months after most of the service lost due to a cascade of problems stemming from years of poor maintenance.
They are also happening in Shreveport, Louisiana, where some residents had no water on Monday. In Selma, Alabama, the mayor declared a emergency state because they feared the city would run out of water. Food bank workers in Greenville, SC opened their doors to a water rush and were trying to save $1 million in food. Atlanta Police Department said their 911 systems were overwhelmed with unnecessary emergency calls about broken pipes.
Dozens of water systems either had boil water advisories in place due to low pressure or warned of larger disasters if leaking broken pipes were not found and the water was turned off.
The culprit was temperatures that dipped below zero on Thursday or early Friday and have only spent a few hours, if any, above 32 degrees since then.
Water expands when it freezes, bursting unprotected pipes. Then, when the temperature rises, those broken pipes start leaking hundreds or thousands of gallons of water.
And on a holiday weekend when many businesses are closed, those leaks can go unnoticed for days, said Charleston, SC, water system spokesman Mike Saia. WCSC-TV.
Charleston was on the verge of having to boil water for its hundreds of thousands of customers, which could close restaurants and other businesses.
The system produces approximately 50 million gallons of water on a typical winter day. Over the holiday weekend, its production was around 100 million gallons. More than 400 customers have reported burst pipes, so between unreported leaks, closed businesses and empty vacation homes, the system estimates that thousands of leaky pipes are squirting water.
“It’s death by a thousand cuts,” Saia told the TV station.
Clouds reflect off the sedimentation ponds at the City of Jackson’s OB Curtis Water Treatment Facility in Ridgeland, Mississippi, Sept. 29, 2022.
Rogelio V. Solis/AP
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Rogelio V. Solis/AP
Clouds reflect off the sedimentation ponds at the City of Jackson’s OB Curtis Water Treatment Facility in Ridgeland, Mississippi, Sept. 29, 2022.
Rogelio V. Solis/AP
The situation in Jackson was not as dire as it was in August, when many of the capital’s 150,000 residents loss of running water after the floods exacerbated long-standing problems at one of the capital’s two sewage treatment plants. Residents had to queue for water for drinking, cooking, bathing and flushing the toilet.
But there were people without water pressure, and the city set up an emergency water distribution site over Christmas.
“We continue to struggle to restore pressure to the water system. We are producing large amounts of water and pushing it through the system, but the pressure is not increasing – despite these efforts at the plants. The problem must be significant leaks in the system that we have not yet identified,” Jackson officials said in a statement.
In Selma, Mayor James Perkins Jr. issued a Christmas Day emergency order asking homeowners to go to their businesses and check for leaks before the town runs out of water.
Crews in the town of 18,000 were able to find and repair enough leaks to equalize the amount of water flowing in and out of the system, Perkins said in a statement Monday. But there was a major leak that has yet to be found, and two more nights that are expected to be below freezing, the mayor said.
Broken pipes also caused problems in individual buildings. A massive leak was reported at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery on Christmas Eve, according to WFSA-TV.
At the Harvest Hope food bank in Greenville, SC, employees opened the building Monday morning and several inches of water rushed in. broken pipes sprayed water and workers turned away dozens of people in need, the food bank said.
The water knocked out power to the food bank’s freezers and refrigerators, and workers faced the dual challenge of restoring power before the food was spoiled and keeping the water out of the area. Up to $1 million worth of food could be destroyed, the food bank said.
The forecast provided good news. Monday’s highs in the Deep South were expected to be at least in the 40s and freezing overnight temperatures are not expected to last that long until significant warming arrives later this week.
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