HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — While the power outages received most of the attention since the first ice storm struck in Huntington and the surrounding region, operators of municipal water systems have also been on high alert.
Megan Hannah with West Virginia American Water Company said early in the process it was unclear exactly how much service was lost for the company’s 44,000 customers in the impacted area. The lack of power caused some of their electronic monitoring equipment to go down and left the company somewhat blind to possible service outages. But Hannah said they were pleased to learn fewer than 400 of their customers were affected.
“We estimate fewer than 400 customers and out of 44,000 that’s really a much better situation than we could have planned for,” she explained.
Most outages were on the terminal ends of the company’s water service into the Salt Rock, Lincoln County, and Milton areas. According to Hannah the main Huntington to Barboursville system was unaffected and the water treatment plant never lost service. The only outages were to pumping stations along the line. Friday afternoon about 15 stations remained whiteout power and the company addressed the needs.
“We continue to work to get generators out to those booster stations and hope to have most of our customers back in service late in the day today or early tomorrow,” Hannah explained.
She expected all customers to be back in service by late Friday night or early Saturday and believed full operations could resume with commercial power at all pumping stations by Sunday evening.
The city of Kenova had a far different situation on its hands. The Kenova water treatment plant lost power and was forced to shutdown earlier in the week. The shutdown eliminated all water service to the system’s customers for a brief period of time. A mobile power plant was brought in to run the system, but didn’t work. Kenova water company officials say fortunately, crews were able to restore their commercial power service by Thursday evening and restore all water service to town residents. A boil water advisory remained in effect in Kenova until further notice.
A boil water advisory was also issued by the Fort Gay water service after their plant lost power for a period as well.