Water outage in Bledsoe County leaves residents without running water for days

UPDATE: The Fall Creek Falls Utility District says up to 70% of their 1880 customers are still impacted by the outage. Right now, there are no other deliveries scheduled for the residents. 

The Bledsoe County Rescue Squad will open up their Pikeville building for showers Friday from 2pm until 6pm. The Lab by Omni Rehab is also allowing showers during their operating hours from 5am to 10pm Monday through Friday and 5am to 5pm Saturday. 

The area is largely agricultural, and resident Holly Dean is worried about some people’s ability to tend to their livestock. 

“With the livestock and everything we have here, animals is a huge concern,” said Dean. 

Fortunately, she has a pond that she has been using for her animals. Dean also says the district has a pattern of water outages. They have posted three other times about low or no water pressure since January. 

“If this continues to happen like it has to me in the last six months that I’ve lived here, it’s going to continue to happen if they don’t upgrade the infrastructure,” said Dean. 

PREVIOUS STORY: On Monday morning, many residents in Bledsoe County awoke to a frustrating reality—no running water. A widespread water outage affected the area after the Fall Creek Falls Utility District discovered multiple leaks in the water supply lines, causing water tanks to rapidly drain.

Days later, some homes are still without water, leaving residents struggling to meet basic needs.

“We have a newborn baby at the house, who every three hours has a dirty bottle that needs to be washed,” said Kimberly Sutherland. “It has been tough on us.”

Kelsey Gibson added, “We can’t flush, our dishes are backed up, we’re unable to take showers.”

While water outages are not unusual in the region, the severity of this disruption is being linked to seismic activity that occurred Saturday morning. Virginia Lewis is a commissioner with the Fall Creek Falls Utility District. She said the tremor may have damaged the infrastructure.

“It shook the ground, it shook the houses, so it shook the pipes too,” Lewis explained. “That may have caused small cracks in the pipes or the connections.”

Most outages in the southern part of the county have been addressed, but residents in the northern section continue to experience dry taps.

“Some four days… some two days,” said Lewis. “But everybody in this area basically has no water or is just now getting water back.”

To provide some relief, the utility district has brought in a truck from Nashville loaded with bottled water for residents. A tanker truck from Wilson County has also been made available for people to fill personal containers.

Despite these efforts, the prolonged lack of water is raising concerns among locals about the long-term impact on their homes and plumbing systems.

“Is it going to cause damage to our housing, our pipes, our appliances that use water?” asked resident Kaitlyn Lauritsen. “Not having stuff go through it?”

Lewis says the utility district is aware of the infrastructure issues and is working toward a long-term solution.

“The process of design specifications being submitted, bids being set up, and all of that just takes a while,” she said.

Crews from Sparta and Fall Creek Falls State Park are currently assisting in restoration efforts. Lewis offered an apology and a promise of continued work.

“We apologize, we hate that this has happened to them,” she said. “We’re working just as diligently as we can, but the crews are still at work now.”

The utility district has not provided an exact timeline for full restoration but remains hopeful that water service will return to all affected areas soon.