ANSON COUNTY — Anson County officials provided a detailed overview of the county’s response to the widespread water system failure that left residents without water earlier this month, while also outlining plans to review the incident and improve the system to help prevent similar disruptions from happening in the future.
During the Board of Commissioners meeting, Chairman Jamie Caudle acknowledged the impact the outage had on residents.
“I want to call out the elephant in the room,” said Chairman Jamie Caudle. “We all know that this county has suffered some severe water issues over the past two weeks.”
County Manager Len Sossamon said the incident began after a leak was discovered on a 24-inch water main near Morven Freight Line Road along U.S. 74.
“It was identified as a 24-inch water main, which actually is the main that is the backbone of the county’s water system coming from all the way from the filtration plant at the Pee Dee River and going across the county,” explained Sossamon. “Due to its size, Columbus Utilities was contracted to repair it.”
Sossamon said the pipe’s one-inch-thick walls required specialized equipment that county crews did not have, resulting in officials hiring Columbus Utilities to complete the repair.
The initial plan was to construct a temporary bypass around the damaged section to restore service within about 12 hours. Instead, the line ruptured during repairs, draining approximately 12.5 million gallons of water from the county’s distribution system.
“Unfortunately, while they were working on [it] and had the bypass in place, the line blew out… it actually drained a system of about 12 and a half million gallons of water, so that meant no one had water,” Sossamon said.
Restoring service turned into being a prolonged process because of the age of the county’s infrastructure, Sossamon said.
“Bringing back the system was a slow process because of the age of our system. You got lines that are 50-60 years old and older… We actually tried it… and which it proved not to work,” Sossamon explained.
Once pressure was restored, crews had to remove trapped air from the system to avoid additional breaks.
“If you let the air pockets stay there too long, they’ll create [an] air hammer that could’ve caused another line break in a different area,” Sossamon said.
Officials then spent several days flushing the system and collecting bacteriological samples before water quality testing returned acceptable results.
“We were able to work through those and get them into the negative territory. Negative in that sense means good… So now we’re back to what we what should be close to normal,” Sossamon said.
Although the main break was repaired, Sossamon said crews have continued responding to additional water line breaks, including one along U.S. 74 near Peaches and Cream on July 21.
County leaders also recognized county employees and outside agencies that assisted throughout the emergency.
Assistant County Manager Nick Addison praised utility crews for working around the clock during the response.
“County staff, especially the utilities crews worked around the clock, and I mean around the clock. We had shifts running for 24 hours a day… The truth is a lot of their efforts occurred behind the scenes and out of public view,” Addison said.
Addison said what began as a local utility emergency quickly became a regional response involving neighboring counties, municipalities and state agencies.
“What really began as a local utility emergency, quickly responded into a regional effort to help Anson County… on behalf of Anson County Government, I do want to express our sincere appreciation to those organizations,” Addison said.
He recognized the Anson County Chamber of Commerce, Anson County Emergency Management, Anson County Sheriff’s Office, Anson County Utilities Department, Ansonville Fire Department, Atrium Health, Burnsville Fire Department, Center Rural Fire Department, Charlotte Water, the City of Monroe, Civil Air Patrol, DA Griffin Construction, 4A Loader Work, Gulledge Volunteer Fire Department, Hazen and Sawyer, Lilesville Fire Department, Lynn Thomas Grading, Morven Fire Department, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, the North Carolina Department of Transportation, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, North Carolina Emergency Management, the North Carolina Forest Service, North Carolina WARN, Peachland Fire Department, Polkton Fire Department, the Red Cross, Richmond County, Rodney T. Morton Trucking, Union County, the towns of Ansonville, Lilesville, Morven, Peachland, Polkton and Wadesboro, Wadesboro Fire Department, and the individuals, businesses, organizations and nonprofits that contributed to the response effort.
Caudle said community members also played an important role by supporting crews throughout the response.
“There are a multitude of people that pitched in and helped in this crisis… I think an incident like this just shows what this community, what Anson County is about— that we will help our neighbor no matter what that looks like,” Caudle said.
Caudle also thanked utility crews, their families, Assistant County Manager Nick Addison and Anson County Library Manager Caroline Hightower for assisting with public communication during the emergency.
“The management of this county sometimes is focused on solving the problem and sometimes the public information message gets lost. I asked Ms. Caroline to come in and help us with sending the message, getting the information out to the public,” Caudle said. “She could have very easily told me, ‘that’s not my job. I’m not hired to do that. I can’t do that.’ She didn’t. She stepped up and she said, ‘I’ll be there. Whatever you need, I’m willing to help.’ That’s the part of the community that I’m talking about— the people that said yes, didn’t matter what we asked for.”
Looking ahead, Caudle said county officials intend to evaluate the response and identify ways to strengthen the county’s water infrastructure.
“We have to find solutions moving forward to how to fix this problem where it does not happen again. I personally do not know what that looks like exactly, but I’m smart enough to know that if I don’t know something, I’ll call the people who do— and that’s exactly what we did in the middle of this crisis.”
Caudle also credited Hazen and Sawyer for assisting the county during the emergency and said officials plan to conduct an after-action review.
“There will be going forward, there’s some after action reviews that we’re going to sit down and study what happened, how we can improve and how we can prevent things like this from happening in the future… because we have to do better as a county,” Caudle said.
Commissioner Joshua Ellerbe proposed creating an Anson County Water and Sewer Planning Board to advise commissioners on long-term infrastructure planning, capital improvements and grant strategies.
“It’s evident that we have some serious challenges ahead of us. The purpose of this would be to establish a water and sewer planning board that advises the board of commissioners on capital planning, grant strategy and long-term infrastructure priorities for the county’s water and sewer systems,” Ellerbe said.
Caudle said he is open to discussing the proposal.
“I think that’s something we can take in advisement and discuss and see how we structure that. I mean, I’m open to that,” he said.
During the discussion, an audience member questioned officials about state assistance.
Sossamon said North Carolina Emergency Management had been involved since the first day of the incident and explained that the water system failure did not fall under the type of disaster FEMA typically addresses.
“North Carolina Emergency Management was involved since day one. That’s how we would go through FEMA avenues— is through the North Carolina Emergency Management,” Sossamon said.
He added that state officials have encouraged the county to pursue financing through the State Revolving Fund loan program because grant funding has become limited.
During the exchange, Sossamon also responded to claims regarding funding for the county’s water system.
“That’s an outright lie because right now that $6 million plus three million from the county’s fund balance is going into repairing and replacing the entire filtration system out at the filtration plant on the Pee Dee River,” Sossamon said. “…Also, we got another $4 million that is going toward replacing some of our sewer lift stations.”
Caudle added that the additional $4 million consists of state-appropriated funds.
Commissioner Kyle Leary, who said he has experience working through emergency operations during hurricanes and other disasters, praised county staff and partner agencies for their response.
“I didn’t know what to expect coming into the EOC with the water system. Y’all had it planned out… I was thoroughly impressed with the people we had working in there,” Leary said.
Caudle echoed those sentiments.
“There was a lot of hands in helping that… there were a lot of hands in helping get that fixed,” Caudle said.
Pastor Danny Williamson approached the podium during the unofficial public forum and encouraged commissioners to acknowledge God during their remarks.
“I’m just going to tell you, you’re robbing God. I didn’t hear anybody in here say, ‘Come on, let’s acknowledge God.’ Because if it wasn’t for him, none of us would be in position to do what we’re doing,” Williamson said.