ODESSA, Texas – Teams were working to restore water on Wednesday in the city of Odessa in West Texas, where residents were left without water this week amid scorching temperatures after an old pipe broke.
The city’s water treatment plant was online again around 8 a.m. Wednesday, and utility officials said it could take 12 to 14 hours for the “recharge” process, during which workers slowly add water back to the system. to ensure that there are no more leaks.
The taps of 165,000 customers of the city’s water supply system lost pressure or dried up completely after the 24-inch (61-centimeter) main canal broke on Monday afternoon, according to the city’s social media pages.
Later Wednesday, temperatures were forecast to reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) as Texas – like much of the United States – faced extremely hot and humid conditions. And while hot weather is usually observed in Odessa in June, the holiday season has made it harder to cope with the heat this week.
Resident Nicki Friday told the Associated Press that the city provides bottled water and that people with wells offer neighbors water from hoses. She also said tank trucks were parked around the city to fill buckets with water.
“Drinking water is not a problem,” Friday said. “We just need water to get back to our daily lives and to the community.”
Odessa lifelong Linda Wright said the city’s water supply has not been lost in more than five decades of living there. She said she took water and ice from Midland, a 15-minute drive from her home.
Wright said her family has drinking water stored in jugs that they used to wash their hands and brush their teeth, and that her family hooked her house to a well on her property to provide water for rinsing. toilets.
“We just put a hose in the (water) line,” she said.
Wright said she noticed the water starting to flow again around noon, but the pressure had not yet returned to normal.
The city, about 330 miles (530 kilometers) west of Dallas, plans to distribute water to residents of the Hector County Coliseum, as well as supply water to nursing homes. Water tanks were strategically located around the city to respond to all kinds of fires, said Deputy Mayor Filip Urutia.
“This is an aging infrastructure that we are seeing. It’s a cast iron pipe, so they’re usually more susceptible to breakage than other new technologies like PVC pipe entering the ground, “he said.
Wright said he hoped the city would act to prevent a new water emergency
“I just hope they understand that we need to get in there, we need to check these lines and fix those that show signs of age and wear and tear,” she said.
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