Residents in Thomasville were still largely dependent on bottled water shipped in from neighboring counties Tuesday, with more than 90 percent of the city's plumbing shut down for lack of water, emergency management officials said.
The city's system, including service to hospitals and nursing homes, was completely shut down Monday, said Roy Waite, Clarke County Emergency Management director. Service to the hospital, nursing homes and some adjacent residential streets was back on Tuesday, but most residents remained without running water.
The town of about 5,000 residents buys its water from neighboring Pine Hill, which maintains a public utility that serves a broad swath of Clarke County.
Of the various communities served by the Pine Hill facility, Thomasville was the only whose consumption completely outpaced the water supply, said Mayor Sheldon Day, largely because the town is at the end of the supply chain.
Waite and Day, accompanied by representatives from the various communities served by Pine Hill and the state health department, met for more than two hours Tuesday, hashing out a plan to boost the supply of water that reached Thomasville.
The town normally keeps a little more than 5 million gallons of water on hand in a combination of raised towers and ground-level tanks, Waite said, but the crisis, which began Thursday, left them all but empty.
As temperatures plummeted, water usage began to rise across Clarke County. Residents began leaving their faucets running in an attempt keep their pipes from freezing. Many pipes froze anyway, Waite said, and when they thawed, the burst pipes began to hemorrhage water, draining reserves even more.
Thomasville saw as much as three to four times the normal usage, Waite said.
Combined with a mechanical failure in Pine Hill, the spike in usage was enough to exhaust the town's water supply.
Bottles of water for drinking, which are being distributed at the Thomasville civic center, initially ran short, until the town began receiving two truckloads per day, Waite said.
Non-potable water for flushing toilets is available at the National Guard Armory.
Water shortages were briefly reported around Grove Hill, Waite said, but that area was back online Tuesday.
Temperatures were supposed to be higher Tuesday night, which might bring an end to people letting their pipes run at night, but the water shortage may continue, Waite said. Many pipes that were frozen will thaw out and begin to leak, he said.