Entire NC towns without water for days after power outages, freezing weather

Residents in Spring Hope are facing low or no water pressure, according to a Facebook post by the town's mayor Kyle Pritchard. He says the rolling outages caused power to the town's wells and wastewater treatment plant to trip – and not restart.

Then Wednesday night, a water main broke, cutting off all water to the town.

However, after solving the issues caused by Duke Energy's blackouts, the town seems to have been hit with a second major problem. The water pressure remains low.

The town has now asked the North Carolina Rural Water Association to do a system-wide leak test.

"Now that the wells are back online and pressure continues to be an issue, there is likely a major underground leak," writes Pritchard. "As soon as we thought we were in the clear and had fixed the issues caused by the Duke Energy rolling outages, we were hit with another major problem ... We should find a resolution to this problem by tomorrow morning."

The issues began on Christmas Eve at Patrick Wales' house.

"We haven't had enough pressure to be able to do any laundry," said Wales. "We've got potable water, I've got on my porch empty bottles that we've used over the last three or four days."

Wales has lived in town for just over a year; This is not the first water issue he's faced.

"I get it, it's money. But - you run a town. You have people to support," said Wales. "I don't think our expectations are that high to just give us the basic necessities we need to live."

Pritchard told WRAL News about half of the town was affected by the rolling duke energy outages, and all 14 hundred residents were impacted by the water main break last night.

He says the town faces a common issue.

"It's aging infrastructure and no money to make the repairs," said Pritchard.

Spring Hope has federal money flowing down the line for future fixes.

"We have 3.7 million that Senator Barnes helped us get, and we'll be able to implement these systems to keep this from happening again," said Pritchard.

Pritchard has been providing regular updates for the town's citizens.

He's reached out to Nash County Emergency Services to discuss working with the state to get an emergency water supply for residents and surrounding fire departments. The county reached out to the state on Spring Hope's behalf, asking for non-potable water. However, the state denied the request "because they do not get involved in localized small issues," according to his updates.

Nash County provided non-potable water to the town's fire department Thursday for residents.

"As we are all aware, that’s a destiny every small town in America is facing with aging cast iron water infrastructures," writes Pritchard.

On Dec. 26, the City of Asheville tweeted that "extremely low temps and high water demand continue to place an unusual strain on the City of Asheville’s water distribution system. Please conserve water for the next 24-48 hours to help avoid low or no water pressure for all customers."

According to their updates, a water production facility had been unable to produce water since Dec. 24, which contributed to outages in Asheville.

Parts of Asheville were put under a boil water advisory, and efforts began to deliver drinking water to people in need.

As of Friday, all three water treatment facilities were back online and all identified major leaks have been isolated or addressed. The city is working on restoring water to residents, but officials estimate it could take another day or two to fully restore water.