City Water Outage: Leak Still Hasn't Been Found, School Cancelled For Wednesday, November 3rd

City workers check another main line water location near the old sewing factory on Ferguson Street.

Darren Doyle, story and photos:
Brownsville residents are still in the midst of a water outage after city personnel and utility crews have searched nonstop all day today and much of last night for a leak in a main line that has drained the city's 200,000 gallon reservoir.

Brownsville mayor Jerry Meredith said in his 30 years of dealing with city business and local utilities, he's never seen anything quite like this.

"When you have that much water leaking out, it's normally not too hard to find it because you've got a mess somewhere," he said. "In this case, we think it may have found a sinkhole or pathway to a cave or something like that because we can't find it anywhere."

City workers check a main water line location on Main Street.

Meredith said the city began receiving calls of no water or no water pressure from the mobile home park near the southside city limits last night around 7PM. Main water lines feeding that area appear to working properly, which he said was puzzling.

He said by 9PM, the city's reservoir tank was empty.

City water is fed from a designated line from the Edmonson County Water District. The city has their own water service the same as they have their own sewer and trash services. Meredith said the Edmonson Water District line is feeding properly and from there, everywhere they've checked, there has been no leak discovered anywhere.

"We've got our city workers, guys from the Edmonson Water District, the Kentucky Rural Water Division, and engineers on this," he said. "I know this is a huge inconvenience for city residents, but we're doing everything we can do and we ask for you patience."

A portion of a main line that shows water pressure inside.

Meredith said on top of the need for homes and businesses to have water services restored as soon as possible, the nursing home and schools are also without. Edmonson County schools were cancelled today because there was no water at all at the EC 5/6 Center and neither ECHS nor ECMS had enough pressure to operate properly. 

Superintendent of Edmonson County Schools Brian Alexander told the Edmonson Voice this evening that school is going to be cancelled again for Wednesday, November 3rd due to the continuing issue.

"The health and safety of our students and staff comes first and we can't provide a healthy environment without proper facilities, which obviously takes water," he said. "Wednesday will not be an NTI day; however, if we have to cancel past Wednesday, we will incorporate virtual learning for all students. We'll just have to see what happens."

The mayor also said there is no logical pattern with some of the places that have water and those that don't, and that's what's got utility workers and city officials at a loss. 

"It just doesn't make sense, but we just have to keep tracing down lines until we find it. It's just been a mind-wracking thing."

Mayor Meredith said the city will be under a boil water advisory until further notice.