A huge water main break near the Georgia Tech campus left streets flooded and thousands of people in City of Atlanta without water Saturday.
The break has since been “contained” and service has been restored, though a boil water advisory remains in effect and some people may still be experiencing low water pressure.
BOIL WATER ADVISORY STILL IN EFFECT FOR PORTIONS OF THE CITY OF ATLANTA AND THE CITIES OF SOUTH FULTON, UNION CITY, FAIRBURN, AND CHATTAHOOCHEE HILLS
Attached is a map of the impacted service area.
Link: https://t.co/1rhHV6VVLT pic.twitter.com/6QptIUHvc2
— Atlanta Watershed (@ATLWatershed) June 28, 2020
As of Saturday at 11 p.m., the boil water advisory is still in effect for the City of Atlanta (South of 17th St. NW and West of East Lake Drive SE), and the cities of South Fulton, Union City, Fairburn, and Chattahoochee Hills.
Officials said the advisory was out of an abundance of caution. The Atlanta Watershed Department is waiting on test results before it lifts the advisory. Results are expected sometime Sunday around 7:30 p.m. Georgia Tech police reported that the 36-inch water main broke at Ferst Drive and Hemphill Avenue near the university’s manufacturing institute. The break affected people for several miles in every direction.Atlanta water customers reported widespread outages and low water pressure across the city Saturday afternoon.
A Watershed representative said that crews are working as fast as they can and realize the number of people affected is larger than a typical water main break.
Even though some people said their water pressure was going back to normal, others said their water is discolored.
“I didn’t realize this was happening, and a little bit later when I saw I was trying to fill up water, it was all brown and muddy,” GA Tech student Sai Pentabadi said. “And then I just went online and saw there’s a boil water advisory.”
The boil water advisory will stay in effect until the right amount of testing is done by Watershed officials.
All residents are advised to boil all water or use bottled water for cooking, preparing baby food and brushing teeth.
Vigorous hand washing or showers with soap and tap water should be safe for basic personal hygiene. However, if washing hands to prepare food, use boiled (then cooled) water along with handwashing soap.
A current map of the outage can be found HERE.
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