As the cold retreats, pipes bursting
Busy with repairs, utilities ask folks to conserve water
As Arkansas began thawing Friday, so did water pipes, causing bursts and ultimately overloading water infrastructure and in some cases leaving households without water.
The burden on the water system occurred after two winter storms pushed temperatures below zero and dumped as much as 20 inches of snow in some parts of the state.
Little Rock recorded the highest official snowfall total at 20.2 inches, said meteorologist Joe Goudsward of the National Weather Service in North Little Rock. Other monitoring sites around the state recorded 18.6 inches in North Little Rock, 15.1 inches in Pine Bluff and 9.8 inches in Harrison.
The highest unofficial total was 21 inches in Little Rock, Goudsward said.
Little Rock is expected to get temperatures in the 40s today.
“We will be warming over the next couple of days and probably into next week as well,” Goudsward said. “There will probably be a few rain showers Sunday.”
Utility companies across the state Friday asked customers to conserve water as they worked to find leaks that were stressing systems. Boil orders were in effect in some areas, and others were left without water as tanks refilled.
Mayflower updated residents through Facebook after shutting off its water system Friday morning. A post said the city hoped to have enough water in its tanks by the end of the day to start turning some sections of the water system back on.
Kayla Gillion, 26, of Lawrence Landing near Mayflower, said her water was turned off without warning about 7 p.m. Thursday.
She said taking care of five children, ages 7 months to 7 years, has been difficult.
The road to her house remains iced, making it difficult to leave.
“Luckily I bathed all my kids last night except the youngest,” Gillion said. “I have been boiling snow and dumping it in the back of the toilet to flush, but now it is clogged.”
The family has some bottled water and grape and orange juice to drink, Gillion said.
“The kids drink juice, but all I drink is water because I breastfeed,” Gillion said. “I have to stay hydrated.”
Her already busy days have become more difficult, as everything from making a meal to washing dishes is a struggle.
“They said it would turn back on this morning and ours didn’t,” Gillion said. “I feel like I’m left in the dark over here.”
Calls and emails from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette to the city went unanswered Friday.
Calico Rock posted on its website mid-morning that a portion of the Izard County town was facing water loss from Red Lane to downtown. A previous post explained water loss was caused by residential leaks.
Stephen Hicks, the town’s water manager, said about 200 customers, or one-third of the system, was under a boil order Friday. He said it has been difficult for crews to get to some places because of road conditions.
“Right now we are holding our own and we hope as the weather warms up we can get the issue resolved in the next few days,” Hicks said. “Most of the people are understanding and they realize what is going on.”
Hot Spring County Water was experiencing a service disruption to its system that serves 1,350 customers, office manager Susan Parish said Friday afternoon. She said she didn’t know exactly how many were out of water.
“We are having a lot of water problems,” Parish said. “We have some leaks that we can’t find and we have a few customers who are without water because of it. It has been really kind of a struggle.”
Central Arkansas Water spokesman Doug Shackelford said Friday that the utility had water in the system but customers were being asked to conserve.
“What we are trying to do is go out and identify leaks,” Shackelford said. “We have several team members out in the community repairing and identifying.”
The utility said in a news release that treating water to keep up with demand was placing a heavy burden on the system as frozen pipes thawed.
“This morning we found a business in downtown North Little Rock that had water coming out all over the place,” Shackelford said. “The fire suppression system had frozen and broken, so they were leaking a lot of water. Those are the types of leaks we are finding.”
He said it’s likely there a lot of similar leaks in businesses and churches throughout the community. As temperatures rise and pipes thaw, the pressure could cause more leaks throughout the next few days, Shackelford said.
The hope is that customers can help offset the demand through conservation.
“It really takes a couple of things and we see a shift in how the system is functioning,” Shackelford said. “That is really the entire purpose of why we decided to put out the notice, to try to get ahead so we can function at the highest level possible.”
In a Facebook post Friday morning, Benton Utilities asked customers to boil water before consuming it. It said water should be brought to a rolling boil for one minute and that customers can use that water for showering.
The boil advisory started about midnight Thursday and remains in place as the water system refills. The company said its system experienced strains Thursday, including two fire hydrants that were struck by vehicles and a ruptured water main.
Hot Springs also asked customers to conserve water Friday, saying the supply had reached a critical point with about 26 percent of storage capacity remaining, according to a news release.
No boil order had been issued Friday afternoon, the release said, but service could be disrupted if conservation efforts weren’t successful. The release said about 3,000 homes and businesses in the city have had pipes burst because of cold temperatures.
Washington Water Authority in Northwest Arkansas remained under a water conservation request south of Fayetteville and Farmington. Customers were asked to turn off dripping faucets as temperatures rose.
Josh Moore, water authority general manager, said water usage had more than doubled from 67 to 150 percent.
“Anything customers can do to help conserve water the next couple days will help keep them and their neighbors with water,” Moore said.
There was no boil order or loss of service for the water authority, Moore said Friday morning, but he said that could change if water use isn’t lowered, especially for houses at higher elevations.
Warmer weather could help water companies fix issues quicker as more roads clear throughout the state.
Dave Parker, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Transportation, said sunshine was helping clear the roads Friday.
Parker said the interstates and major highways were clear with the exception of shoulders, and that crews in Little Rock were focusing Friday on secondary roads such as Stagecoach, Colonel Glenn and Broadway.
While a majority of roads may be clear by today, runoff from piled-up snow is likely to refreeze in the evenings and cause black ice for several more days, Parker said.
Power systems throughout the state also were returning to normal as consumption lowered with the temperature rising.
“It looks like we are out of the woods with power capacity and demand issues,” said Rob Roedel, a spokesman for Arkansas Electric Cooperative.
About 15,000 to 17,000 cooperative members were out of power at the peak of the storm, he said.
David Lewis, spokesman for Arkansas Entergy, said it had about 20,000 outages for about 45-minute periods Tuesday during rolling outages that were ordered by Midcontinent Independent System Operator.
Lewis said that before the mandatory outages the system saw fewer than 10,000 outages at any given time.
There were 411 outages remaining Friday, Lewis said.