DUNBAR, W.Va. — A broken main line near a pump station was blamed for a water outage that affected 25,000 people in Kanawha and Putnam counties.
West Virginia American Water Company spokesperson Laura Jordan said the break occurred at a relay station in Dunbar.
“It’s a 36-inch concrete transmission main. It’s our largest transmission main which pumps water out to the end of our Kanawha Valley system,” she said.
The outage caused damage to Route 25 and residents from Dunbar to Buffalo were left with no water or low water pressure.
Crews handling the repair work estimated it taking 12 hours to complete repairs, but then the entire system must be repressurized, because the main water supply to the area had to be shut off during repairs.
“At this point we cannot provide an estimated restoration time for the full system because it is very much dependent on customer usage,” said Jordan. “Unfortunately that’s incredibly difficult for us to predict.”
Water distribution points were set up across the affected area. Customers who needed water had to bring their own containers to fill up. The distribution outlets:
—Andrew Jackson Middle School in Cross Lanes
—Dunbar Plaza
—West Virginia State University
—Nitro High School
—West Side Volunteer Fire Department in St. Albans
—Eleanor Tech Center
—Winfield Courthouse
—Buffalo Fire Department
—Poca Fire Department
—Hurricane Fire Department
—Bancroft Fire Department