COALWOOD, W.Va. — Officials with the McDowell County Public Service District say they are slowly bringing customers back on line after many lost water service during the weekend flood.
General Manager Mavis Brewster with the PSD said initially they had 2,178 homes and businesses out of water on Sunday. The entire system only has 3500 customers. As of Wednesday, they had whittled down the outages to 1680.
“Right now we’re working on areas that have a small amount of damage and we’re fixing leaks and repairing lines that drain tanks so we can get those tanks back up and running to supply water,” she explained.
The McDowell County PSD has a LOT of work to do as they try to reconnect water service in the county, especially in the area of Route 83 near Bradshaw, Barley, and Jolo. pic.twitter.com/bvFwpa1u2l
— Chris Lawrence (@WVOutdoors) February 19, 2025
The Public Service District serves 16 separate water systems in McDowell County. Those are serviced by four main water treatment plants and an array of pump stations. The heart of the operations, fortunately was spared the worst case scenario.
“Our plants thankfully are operational and that’s a tremendous blessing. In the past we’ve had damage to the plants. We have some booster stations which we haven’t been able to access because they are in the Route 83 area,” she explained.
Route 83 is the road which serves Bradshaw, Jolo, and Bartley and was one of the hardest hit areas of the county by the high water. The road itself is heavily damaged in some areas and will have to be fixed even before the line can be considered.
“The roads are just gone, the lines are laying on top of the ground. So we’re going to have to coordinate with the highway department just so we can get back in there and make repairs to get those people back in water. That’s going to be a slow process on Route 83,” said Brewster.
She couldn’t even offer a guess as to a timeline for the restoration of service there. But work to the rest of the system which remains accessible continues around the clock. Brewster understood the critical nature of their work.
“People have flooding in their basements and their homes and can’t even get a shower after working all day to clean up their homes. It’s really critical we get the water back on and we’re aware of that,” she said.