Water flow disrupted

MORE THAN ONE WAY TO MAKE COFFEE - Jimmy Hight, desktop lead of Temple-Inlands' Personal Computing Services, gets water from an alternative source for Monday morning coffee following a boil water notice from the city of Diboll officials. (Staff photo by Lois Cooper)

Break in 4" line causes low water pressure in Diboll

On Saturday July 28, 2007 residents of the city of Diboll began to experience low water pressure and began to make inquiries.

"As city crews began to respond to calls, the problem became progressively worse". said City Manager Kenneth Williams. "As a matter of fact, things got to the point that some areas of the city lost total water pressure."

Although the alerting device on the city's water system failed to call, members of the the Diboll Water Utility Department suspected that there was a large leak somewhere in the system. After many hours of searching for a leak, one was discovered in a four inch line in an isolated area of the creek near Lumberjack Drive.

According to Williams, city crews soon isolated the line and shut off valves thereby stopping the leak. At that point all areas of town began to slowly get water pressure except for the splash pad in Old Orchard Park which was shut down on Sunday.

Because of little to no water in reserve due to the leak, city officials issued a mandatory water conservation notice to residents and industry until storage tanks could be refilled.

Also, for those who had lost total water pressure, a notice to boil water before drinking was issued through the local media.

As of Monday afternoon, preparations to repair the leak were underway, hampered by the fact that the broken line was in a difficult to reach location in the creek.

The city is also assessing the low water warning system that failed to notify technicians in a timely manner.

"We apologize for the inconvenience and thank all customers for their cooperation during this event". Williams said.