Atlanta water woes extend into fourth day as city finally shuts off gushing leaks

ATLANTA (AP) — For at least some residents, Atlanta’s water problems weren’t over Monday.

Milena Franco, a resident of the city’s Midtown neighborhood, said she and her husband had water all weekend. But on Monday morning, the flow went out, as Franco discovered while trying to take a shower.

“I went in the shower and just cried for a little while,” Franco said.

City officials said water was turned off in the immediate area as part of an effort to stop the flow of a broken water main that had been spilling a river into the streets since Friday evening.

The geyser finally dried up around sunrise Monday, after authorities trucked parts of Alabama under a police escort. But much of the city remained under orders to boil water before drinking it, even in areas where pressure had been restored after a first gigantic leak was repaired Saturday. The days of outages have left some residents frustrated with the pace of repairs, saying the city still isn’t doing a good job of providing information.

Water flows from a pipe attached to a device that shuts off the flow of a water main, Monday, June 3, 2024, in Atlanta. The device was one of several used to cut off the flow of a leak that had been gushing for more than two days in Atlanta’s Midtown neighborhood. (AP Photo/Jeff Amy)

Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Jeff Amy

“We are focused on this problem and my administration understands how critical water is to our lifeline in this city,” Dickens told reporters at the site of the water main break Monday.

But his news conference ended before reporters could ask all their questions, as resident Rhett Scircle asked the questions residents in neighboring buildings wanted to know.

“When will the water be restored? Is there an estimated timeline? We live here! Scircle yelled at Department of Watershed Management Commissioner Al Wiggins Jr.

Wiggins, however, refused to estimate when the water would flow again, even as backhoes continued to dig a hole behind him.

The outage did not affect the entire city of 500,000: many areas in the north and south ends of Atlanta never lost water pressure and never faced an order boiling. But for thousands of residents, problems began Friday when a massive leak at the junction of three water mains caused a massive leak west of downtown. Wiggins said the leak was caused by corrosion and was difficult to repair because the three pipes created a confined workspace.

The Midtown escape began a few hours later. Wiggins said city workers still don’t know why this happened, but it was difficult to repair because it happened at the junction of two large water pipes and the valve to let them go. close was inaccessible due to the gushing liquid. The city instead dug holes in four directions a block away to cut off flow to the Midtown leak, although Scircle and some other residents said they saw little work for much of Saturday and Sunday.

Water pressure began to be restored early Sunday for many, and large events, such as a concert and an Atlanta United soccer match, were held in the downtown area on Sunday.

But it was a difficult weekend for other residents. Workers at a bar adjacent to the Midtown leak were beginning to try to clean up Monday after water burst through a window and the bar was closed all weekend, costing the owner money and workers. A hotel adjacent to the Midtown district was evacuating some guests Monday after a dry weekend.

Some high-rise office buildings remained closed Monday, saying there was not enough water pressure to operate air conditioning units and deliver water to upper floors.

Dickens, a first-term Democratic mayor, was in Memphis, Tennessee, on Friday to lead a political fundraiser for his 2025 re-election campaign and did not return until Saturday. Many residents criticized the city’s response, saying officials continued to fail to communicate clearly, even after Dickens apologized Saturday and promised updates every two hours.

José Franco, Milena Franco’s husband, said he and his wife continued to drink tap water for some time Saturday because they were unaware of the boiling water outage. He and his wife said the water outage in their apartment surprised them before dawn Monday.

“If they know there won’t be any water for a few days, they should provide more free water,” José Franco said. And he pointed out the “elephant in the room”: the inability to flush the toilet.

City workers continued Monday to promise free bottled water to affected residents at fire stations. Dickens declared a state of emergency so the city could purchase materials and hire workers without following normal purchasing laws, but a spokesperson said there was no decision yet. estimate of the cost of the emergency to the city.

Failing infrastructure is common in older neighborhoods in American cities. Atlanta has spent billions in recent years to upgrade its aging sewer and water infrastructure, including a tunnel bored through 5 miles of rock to provide the city with more than 30 days of stored water. Last month, voters approved maintaining a 1-cent sales tax to fund federally mandated sewer improvements. At one time, the city regularly dumped its untreated sewage into streams and the Chattahoochee River.

Wiggins said Monday that “there’s still work going on” on the city’s water system.

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