Asheville leaders fall short of water restoration goal as outage nears 1-week mark

By Hannah Mackenzie

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    ASHEVILLE, North Carolina (WLOS) — Asheville leaders issued a disappointing update Friday regarding widespread water outages. David Melton, director of water resources, announced the city fell short of its previous restoration estimate.

“Unfortunately, we will not be able to make the goal of having full water service by the end of the day,” Melton said.

Patience is running thin, as water still isn’t running at all for many. With two young children, Torri Render said it’s an inconvenience.

“Right now, it is like 75% back,” Render said. “Some mornings we’ve had it and it sort of trickles a little then goes off. It’ll come back on and sort of in and out.”

According to Render, the service has been unreliable for the last three days.

“We had some friends who let us go and take a shower at their house and give our kids a bath,” Render said. “We’re just thankful for good friends like that. They let us fill up some gallon jugs of water so that we have some water to drink.”

Water outages are fluctuating hour-to-hour, even door-to-door in Render’s Candler neighborhood. Her neighbor, Fritz Robinette, didn’t have water until Friday afternoon. He said it went off again later that day.

“We had to rely on friends in the next county over to give us a shower,” Robinette said.

Differing elevations play a key role in supply, Melton said. He also announced Candler and Spivey Mountain are expected to be the last areas to see 100% water restoration. A pump has been brought in to help.

“That pump is in place, pumping about 1,500 gallons a minute, which equates to around 2 million gallons a day,” Melton said.

However, that’s still drastically below the 9-million-gallon daily demand for the Candler area, he said.

Right now, the number of people affected and a new estimate for restoration are unknown.

“This is all weather related, but we’ve all learned a lot in this,” Melton said. “This hasn’t happened in the last 30 years. So, it is an unprecedented thing. But we have learned from this, and we’re putting measures in place to mitigate this in the future.”

News 13’s Hannah Mackenzie asked Melton why the cold and elevation are just now a problem, when it hasn’t been in the past.

“It’s just a prolonged cold-weather,” Melton responded. “The sub-zero temperatures that we’ve had, it’s just hit everybody hard.”

Despite the upcoming holiday weekend, Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer ensured work will continue to restore water.

“We’re not taking our foot off the gas pedal,” Manheimer said. “We’re going to be available, pushing out information and working on the ground to restore water service.”

Mackenzie also asked city leaders if water was being brought in so impacted residents could fill up containers in order to bathe and flush their toilets. Currently, the city is only offering drinking water to those unable to afford or access water.

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