The official student news site of Athens Drive High School

ATHENS ORACLE

The official student news site of Athens Drive High School

ATHENS ORACLE

The official student news site of Athens Drive High School

ATHENS ORACLE

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UNC Chapel Hill suffers major water crisis

The city of Chapel Hill in Orange County recently suffered from a major water crisis due to a broken water main and complications in the water treatment plant. On Feb. 3rd, a vast majority of the city was stuck without safe drinking water. Many facilities were forced to close down such as schools, restaurants and hotels.

Chapel Hill declared a state of emergency the morning that it occurred. In response to the critical situation, relief organizations rushed bottled water and portable toilets to the thousands of civilians who were warned not to use the city water.

The community was quick to respond to aid in the situation. According to the News and Observer, Orange County Health director Colleen Bridger said, “There were a lot of moving parts behind the scene and one of the great things about working and being involved in Orange County; probably one of the most common phone calls we got was, ‘How can I help?’”

The problem was that it had been supplied with a surplus of fluoride, which lowered the amount of water available by 1.5 million gallons and risked potential contamination. Even though over 80,000 citizens still had working water, they were warned not to drink it because it was dangerous. With such low water pressure, it becomes a major concern because of a lack of water flow. This allows bacteria to grow easily in the main supply.

The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s men’s basketball team had to quickly adjust to the lack of water. Their game against Notre Dame was postponed for a day and moved to the Greensboro Coliseum, when it was originally supposed to be played at the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill.

Along with the basketball team, students at UNC Chapel Hill and other schools in the area were dismissed early and had all classes cancelled.

“The situation seemed scary; if I were in that position I would feel paranoid of using the water, even after it got fixed because of the potential of it being contaminated. I do not want to drink anything that is harmful to me,” said Sarah Huffman, senior.

After about a day and a half, Orange County had found a solution to the issue. After an emergency water treatment plan, they were able to fix the situation and announced that the water was safe to use again.

“We regret that the community has been challenged in this way the last day and a half. We very much appreciate everyone’s cooperation following the do-not-use directive and very pleased to report we have made substantial progress in the last 24 hours and able to confidently say our water is safe.” said Ed Kerwin, executive director of the regional water utility, according to the News and Observer.

Bernard Thomas, The Herald-Sun via AP
An Orange Sewer employee observes the water break damage
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