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Problems With Water Systems in Biloxi

Posted on: Thursday, 1 September 2005, 00:00 CDT

Sep. 1--HARRISON COUNTY, Miss. -- Municipal water systems are shut down, but Emergency Operations Center officials believe they will be running again soon.

They also warned residents not to drink any water when it returns to the taps, as it is probably contaminated.

"If you do get water [service] back in your house, don't drink it," said Col. Joe Spraggins, who is in charge of Harrison County's response effort. "We don't know what's in the system." Capt. Mark Toepher, of the Biloxi Fire Department, said that water lines are also ruptured. Public Works employees are working to fix them.

Water comes out of the tap from pressure created when water falls from the water towers spread throughout the Gulf Coast. The pressure is generated from gravity, but an electrically powered pump must get the water up to the reservoir at the top of the tower for the system to work.

Just outside the EOC, one of those towers stands with little visible damage. Much of its blue paint has been torn away by the raging winds of Hurricane Katrina, but no support struts or feeder pipes seem to be out of place.

The same seemed to be true for the tower at the southern edge of the port in Gulfport. But the smell of rot immediately around that tower is just one indication that even if water service does resume soon, it will most likely contain organisms that will make people sick. "Thousands of pounds of shrimp went into the water at D'Iberville," Spraggins said. "Also tons of frozen chickens [stored at the port] were distributed by Katrina."

The shrimp and chicken will release dangerous bacteria into the water once they start decaying. Spraggins said that members of the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality are already here and are trying to evaluate the water's condition.

Denise Root, of Bayou View, drained the water out of her waterbed, and is now using it to flush her toilets. She said that her friends in Orange Grove had running water on Tuesday, but on Wednesday it was gone.

Melissa Helton said that she lives north of Interstate 10 and has her own well, so she has running water. At a store she was helping clean up on 26th Avenue, there was no water at all coming from the taps.

"There's water coming from the roof, but none from the taps," she said.

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Copyright (c) 2005, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Sun Herald (Biloxi, Miss.)

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