National News
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Nearly per week after Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina, a gleaming chrome steel tanker truck in downtown Asheville attracted residents carrying 5-gallon containers, milk jugs and buckets to the to fill what has turn out to be a particularly scarce resource – drinking water.
The flooding devastated town's water system and destroyed a lot infrastructure that repairs could take weeks, officials said. To make ends meet, Anna Ramsey arrived Wednesday together with her two children, each carrying plastic bags filled with 2 gallons (7.6 liters) of water.
“We don’t have any water. We have no power. But I think it was also humbling,” Ramsey said.
Helene's path through the southeast left a trail of blackouts so large that the darkness was visible from space. Tens of trillions of gallons of rain fell and greater than 200 people died, making Helene the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Katrina in 2005. Hundreds of individuals are still missing, and search parties must trudge through knee-deep rubble to get to know whether residents are secure.
It also damaged water utilities so severely and spanned such a big inland area that a federal official said the toll “could be considered unprecedented.” As of Thursday, about 136,000 people within the Southeast were served by an inoperable water utility and greater than 1.8 million were living under a boil water advisory, in accordance with the Environmental Protection Agency.
Western North Carolina was hit particularly hard. Officials face a difficult rebuilding task, made even tougher by the steep, narrow valleys of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which in a more typical October would attract throngs of fall tourists.
“The geographic challenges are simply that there are fewer roads, fewer access points and fewer areas of flat terrain on which to deploy resources,” said Brian Smith, acting assistant division chief of the EPA's water division within the Southeast.
After days without water, people long for greater than only a sponge bath.
“I would like to take a shower,” said Sue Riles in Asheville. “Running water would be amazing.”
Helene's raging floods destroyed key parts of Asheville's water system, destroying the pipes that carry water from a reservoir within the mountains above town, the most important of the system's three water supply sources. In order to succeed in a second disused reservoir, a brand new road needed to be built.
Increased flow from the third well restored water flow to some south Asheville neighborhoods Friday, but without full repairs, schools may not give you the chance to resume in-person classes, hospitals may not give you the chance to revive normal operations and town's hotels and restaurants may not give you the chance to completely operate open again.
Even undrinkable water is scarce. Drew Reisinger, Buncombe County's elected deeds clerk, worries about people living in apartments who can't just grab a bucket of water from a stream to flush their toilet. Officials are advising people to gather non-potable water for household use from an area swimming pool.
“One thing no one talks about is the amount of feces that is in every toilet in Asheville,” he said. “We are dealing with a public health emergency.”
It's a situation that becomes more dangerous the longer it lasts. Even in communities fortunate to have running water, lots of of providers have issued boil water notices, warning that the water could also be contaminated. But boiling water for cooking and drinking is time-consuming and small mistakes can result in stomach illnesses, in accordance with Natalie Exum, an assistant professor on the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“Every day that goes by you could be exposed to a pathogen,” Exum said. “These basic services that we take for granted in everyday life actually go a long way toward preventing illness.”
Travis Edwards' faucet worked immediately after the storm. He filled as many containers as he could for himself and his child, however it wasn't long before the flow weakened after which stopped. They rationed water, switched at hand sanitizer and barely used toothbrushes.
“(We) didn’t realize how dehydrated we were getting,” he said.
Federal officials have shipped hundreds of thousands of gallons of water to areas where people can also be unable to make phone calls or activate the lights.
Power has been restored to about 62% of homes and businesses, and eight,000 emergency responders are working to revive power within the hardest-hit parts of North Carolina, federal officials said Thursday. In ten districts, around half of the mobile phone sites are still down.
The first step for some utilities is just to determine how extensive the damage is, a task that in extreme cases may require EPA expertise. Burst water pipes are a giant problem. They often run beneath roads, lots of which have been crumpled and deformed by floodwaters.
“Almost any time you see a main road damaged, there's a very good chance there's a pipe damaged there too,” said Mark White, global practice leader for drinking water at engineering firm CDM Smith.
According to the EPA, repairs generally begin on the wastewater treatment plant and move outside, with repairs to nearby large pipes being made first.
“Over time, you will gradually provide water to more and more people,” White said.
Many individuals are still missing, and water repair staff will not be typically deployed in search and rescue operations. That's taking a toll, in accordance with Kevin Morley, federal relations manager for the American Water Works Association.
“There is emotional support which is really important for everyone involved. “You see people’s lives just being wiped out,” he said.
Even private well owners will not be immune. Pumps at private wells may lose power and flooding water may contaminate them.
There is commonly a “blind” assumption that drinking water is not going to fail. In this case, in accordance with Craig Colten, the technology wasn't enough. Before retiring to Asheville, he was a professor in Louisiana, specializing in resilience to extreme weather. He hopes Helene will persuade politicians to spend more to make sure infrastructure can withstand destructive storms.
And climate change will only make the issue worse, said Erik Olson, a health and nutrition expert on the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.
“I think states and the federal government really need to take a step back and think about how we prepare for these extreme weather events that occur and recur every year,” he said.
Edwards developed a system to avoid wasting water. He soaps dirty dishes and rinses them with a drop of water containing bleach, which is collected and placed in a bucket that may be used for the bathroom.
Power and a few cell service have returned for him. And water distribution facilities have guaranteed some level of normality: Edwards looks like he can exit to satisfy friends again.
“Not feeling guilty about using more than a cup of water to wash… I'm really, really grateful,” he said.
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image credit : www.boston.com