“You don’t realize how important water is until you don’t have it,” said one of thousands of North Carolinians still without a water supply after Hurricane Helene.
It is likely to still be weeks or months before taps in this part of Appalachia begin flowing with clean, potable water. The hurricane demolished key components of a system that serves about 160,000 households in and around Asheville.
Perhaps half of them can now turn on faucets — authorities don’t know how many, exactly, but say they have made progress restoring service in recent days — but what comes out is so muddy and contaminated, it must be boiled and strained.
For weeks, residents have been forced to collect water from streams or pools to flush toilets, and to carefully husband supplies of water that are safe for drinking, washing dishes and washing hands. Volunteers have started distributing larger drums and tanks of water to carry the region through a crisis most here had never imagined.
Combine those hardships with thousands of weeks-long power outages, the loss of mountain roads and bridges and a struggle to restore cell networks and internet service, and for some, it’s as if Helene sent the once-bustling tourist hub, with its trendy restaurants and plethora of breweries, back to a time when it was rugged frontier.
Natasha Moore said her anxiety deepens the longer the water problem persists. She said she cares for her mother, who has kidney problems and a pacemaker. She wonders when her water will come back, and worries that even when it does, it still won’t be safe for a long time. It is a common sentiment in the community.
For Kaye Holcombe, who has spring water but is relying on kerosene for light and heat, it is a test of resilience that she can’t spend too much time thinking about. Each night, she fixes her dinner on her grandparents’ old cookstove amid lanterns’ flickering yellow glow. With no phone reception or internet at her home in Ramseytown, N.C., she must make a 45-minute drive on washed-out roads just to learn what is going on in the outside world.
“I can’t think ahead; I just do,” Holcombe said, who has lived in this area for going on 70 years. “People are just in shock. We’re just in survival mode.”
Helene’s floodwaters wreaked havoc on water infrastructure in the region. The same waters that swept away entire communities and killed more than 100 people in North Carolina tore apart massive water lines and damaged pump stations that are necessary to move water across steep terrain. At the North Fork Reservoir, they caused what Buncombe County officials called “catastrophic damage” to a three-foot main that was rebuilt and strengthened after floods in 2004.
But officials say they are making steady progress at putting the system back together. Crews have been working 24 hours a day replacing broken pipes and, as they send water flowing again, patching up leaks that spring up like geysers where the storm broke pipes apart.
Asheville water officials said Tuesday that water outages, which they estimated affected 50,000 to 100,000 customers across the region, had dropped “significantly” over the previous two days. Unlike with electric utilities, for example, they have no way to know how many households they are serving at any given time.
“We have a lot of pipes and tanks to fill to return the system to normal,” Ben Woody, Asheville’s assistant city manager, said in a community briefing Monday.
The floodwaters washed so much dirt and sediment into broken water pipes that officials are warning residents for whom water service is restored to flush their pipes for at least 15 minutes to reduce contamination. While that water is then considered safe for bathing and washing dishes, it should be boiled for at least a minute before it is safely drinkable — and even then, should be strained first, officials said.
“You don’t realize how important water is until you don’t have it,” said Blakely, who lives with his wife, Sharon, in West Asheville. The couple has been using water from a pool to flush their toilets, and in recent days have come to the aid station to shower and have their laundry done.