DeKalb water problems finally ebb

DeKalb County officials on Sunday said they’d finally fixed a broken water main that disrupted businesses and frustrated residents, some of whom didn’t have water and others who had to boil the water they had.

The water saga began Thursday near Tucker when a landscaping crew damaged a fire hydrant near Henderson Mill and Evans roads. That led to the rupture of a water line - 4 feet in diameter - and repeated attempts to repair the problem.

As of 1:30 Sunday afternoon, county officials said they hoped the latest repair of a partially blocked valve had solved the water woes once and for all. The county said its water system was “now fully pressurizing.”

In a tweet, the county added, “Fingers crossed that we are on the up and up from here on out.”

But that announcement came too late for numerous residents in Decatur, Avondale Estates, Tucker, Druid Hills and Stone Mountain. Some were without water. Some had just a trickle of it. Some had to boil the water they had.

Early Sunday, Decatur resident Jeff Long said he’d been without water for 24 hours. He’d made repeated trips to Kroger for bottled water, while also trying to make sure elderly neighbors were taken care of.

County officials “really got caught with their pants down on this,” Long said.

By early afternoon, however, he reported that he had “a trickle” of water at his home. Two hours later, he had enough pressure to fill pots for boiling.

The boil water advisory remained in place for all of DeKalb until the water can be tested Monday. Water used for drinking, cooking or preparing baby food should be boiled for at least one minute after reaching a rolling boil.

DeKalb commissioners said they will try to determine if the county responded quickly enough.

Commissioner Sharon Barnes Sutton said she will see if the county is prepared if something like this happens again.

“I don’t know if this could have been avoided,” she said. “I don’t know if the county responded appropriately. I have faith in our county employees so I believe they responded in the best way possible. But I will be asking questions about the response.”

Nancy Jester, who represents District 1 where the break occurred, said she sympathized with businesses that lost income because they had to shut down. She said she fretted over elderly residents who may not have known all that was happening.

“We need to take a hard look and figure out what set off the events that happened that made it take so long to fix the problem,” Jester said. “What could have been done to prevent this from spiralling out of control? Did we not have the right equipment? Did we wait too long to call in contractors who could fix it?”

Sometime in the future, someone else will run over another fire hydrant, Jester said. “I want to make sure the county government has learned a lesson from this. Such as, could we have shortened the repair window?”

Jester questioned whether county officials, perhaps thinking Thursday’s water line break would be quickly repaired, waited too long before alerting the community about it.

“I do think the county was a little late in getting the word out to folks,” she said. “We need to make sure we have more robust communication in the future.”