Town of Craigsville experiencing water outage - WHSV

Town of Craigsville experiencing water outage

CRAISGVILLE, Va. (WHSV) - The town of Craigsville is dealing with an ongoing water outage that is impacting residents and Augusta Correctional Center.

This all began on Monday, according to officials. The Town of Craigsville, under the guidance of the Virginia Department of Health, issued a Boiled Water Notice to its residents, including the Estaline Valley area.

“The water that you drink, or you cook with has to be boiled before you can use any one of them. As far used for the commode or to shower off or wash off you are fine with that, but you have to boil the water if you are going to be drinking it or cooking with it,” said Craigsville Mayor Richard Fox.

There was a reserve 911 that was sent out to residents with the Boil Water Notice.

“It went across the 911 Reverse System from Augusta County. Everyone supposedly got the call from the 911 center, and we also have it in place on our Facebook, and everything has traveled pretty fast across the community,” said Mayor Fox.

One resident claimed they never received the call and was concerned because they had been drinking the water that day, and the water they received from the Town was not enough for the situation. Mayor Fox says the town purchased 200 cases of water and handed them out to residents at the Town Offices on March 7.

“We got a whole a stack of it inside the door plus all of this here too,” said Mayor Fox.

Mayor Fox said the issue began on Monday, when officials noticed a water break.

“We located the water break and fixed it. But we got a vacuum in the line because the tank and all went plum dry. Sucked the water out of it completely because the alarm did not alarm us on the phone, which it normally does when we have a low water reading and by the time we got to it, it drained the tank and the lines,” said Mayor Fox.

Fox said they are trying to locate another break, that he hopes to get fixed to get water back to town and the Augusta Correctional Center. The entire town is impacted by the situation, and they are not able to get the water they normally get from Augusta Springs.

“They got to pump that’s down, and they are not able us the water that they normally give us. They normally give us about 80 gallons of water a minute from Augusta Springs and they are not able to give us but about 24 gallons at minute,” said Mayor Fox.

WHSV spoke with someone who knows someone in the Augusta Correctional Center. They said they have heard the prison has been out of water for days and has not heard from the Warden when reached out.

According to the Virginia Department of Corrections, after losing its water supply on March 5. The DOC dispatched water tankers to fill the facility’s holding tank and distributed pouches of drinking water to the center’s residents.

At 12:00p.m. on March 7, water was partially restored at Augusta Correctional Center, but they also say the center is still under water restrictions.

The Augusta County Sheriff’s Office is asking people to bring bottled water to the Sheriff’s Office, so they can take it to Craigsville. People can drop off water at any time. There will be pallets in the front of the office for the water.

Mayor Fox asked for people to be patient and will be staying on top of the issue until it is fixed. There will be more water available on March 8 at the Town Offices.

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