Rural Water Customers Facing Two Day Outage

Heavy rains have caused the collapse of a hillside northeast of Vian off of Highway 82 causing a major water outage for rural water customers.

Vance Mooney, Manager of the Sequoyah County Water Association, stated Monday evening that  a mudslide caused the damage and loss of two major water lines including both a 12-inch pipe and an 8-inch pipe. The loss of the two pipes prevents water from being pumped beyond Vian to the east.

Water association employees worked throughout the day trying to make repairs and come up with alternate solutions. A contract company will be arriving tomorrow to start major repairs. Mooney stated that it would take nearly 2,000 feet of pipe plus fittings to make the repairs. "I'm having the supplies shipped in hot," said Mooney. "But with this much repair work it could take a couple of days to complete." Mooney added that he would be laying the line in a safer area to prevent this from happening again.

Areas expected to be without water for the duration of the repair work include Fields Chapel, McKey, Dwight Mission, Marble City and areas east of Highway 59 along Highway 101. Mooney stated that around 2,500 meters will be affected by the outage. 

Many residents are already without water and those that aren't are expected to run out at anytime. Mooney is advising customers to prepare to be without water for at least two days and to stock up and plan accordingly.

"We are working as fast as we can to get the repairs made," Mooney stated. "These are some major lines."

Mooney added that they had been able to re-route water to some homes and would continue to look at creative ways to provide water to any areas possible.

KXMX News Staff

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