MINGO COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) – Residents without water is a common story in Mingo County since the big winter storm hit more than a week ago.
Gavin Dillon, who lives in Mingo County, said, “I came home one day and water had been restored, but it was very low pressure, then it went off again, returned again. Then yesterday it was low pressure and it went off again … and, of as recently as right now, I have no water.”
In losing water, Dillon says it affects his daily life and makes simple tasks a little bit more difficult. He also said he would much rather lose electricity than water.
“Your shower, washing of your clothes, the wiping down of your countertops if you’re prepping a meal, it was almost like, it’s worse to not have water than it is not to have electricity because everything is halted,” Dillon said.
The snowstorm caused the Tug River to rise, bringing in sand and silt from the bottom of the river into the water treatment plant.
JB Heflin, Mingo County PSD Manager, said, “We are in the process of cleaning them. We’ve got one side pretty well completely cleaned out, and they are in the process of cleaning the other one as we speak.”
Heflin says having issues like this, it doesn’t take long for the county to lose water.
“It doesn’t take long till we start losing water in the tanks in our out lying areas, and it just takes us a really long time to fill those back up,” he said.
For those that do have water, Heflin says they will be testing the water Monday and Tuesday to determine when they can lift the boil water advisory.
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