Lincoln boil order expected till Wednesday
Logan County EMA/Schools planning pays off during water emergency

 

[November 27, 2018] 

LINCOLN 

On Sunday evening a lighting strike at the south plant at Illinois American Water (IAW) in Lincoln caused serious damage to a network of pumps and backup systems that impacted two wells used to provide water to businesses and residents in Lincoln.

The public was notified by the IAW when they activated a Code Red protocol where each customer received a phone message telling them there was a problem. There was also a notification by the Logan EMA through the Nixle system.

On Monday morning, the Logan County EMA opened the Emergency Operations Center for emergency response chiefs, public officials, public health and mass population representatives, and others at 11:30 a.m.

Following that meeting press was briefed in the office of EMA Director Dan Fulscher.

Fulscher said that press wasn’t invited inside the meeting because those in attendance needed to be able to speak freely about their concerns without concern for being misunderstood or misquoted.

After the meeting, Lincoln Fire Chief Mark Miller, Lincoln District 27 Superintendent Kent Froebe, Lincoln Mayor Seth Goodman, and Illinois American Water Operations Superintendent Gabe Bowden spoke with media.

Chief Miller explained the disabling lightning strike had occurred on Sunday evening. Diving a little deeper into what had happened at the water plant, Miller said there are several high pressure pumps working to bring water to the city, as well as a back-up that is supposed to take over when pumps fail. The lightning strike ran high voltage electricity into all those pumps as well as the back-ups and disabled everything. He said that at approximately 4 p.m. low pressure alarms began going off at IAW. The Lincoln Fire Department was notified. All the alarms were cleared and work began to assess the damage at the water plant.

At 7:30 p.m. IAW notified Miller that there was zero water pressure and that emergency plans would need to be activated.

The Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital was also notified, and the city fire department began shuttling tankers of water from Lincoln Lakes to the hospital. The fire department also had to shuttle water to the Ardagh Glass plant because they use massive water cooling units that consume large amounts of water. To have water levels fall in those cooling plants would have been a serious hazard for the workers and the community.

Miller said that IAW began working immediately to restore water service and the city continued to supply water to ALMH and Ardagh until about 9 a.m. Monday morning. Illinois Water was able to restore service for those two entities by that time, and continued to work on the problems at the plant.

Water pressure is returning to the city, but because there is a danger involved in restoring the pressure too quickly, the pressure is being increased gradually.

When water pressure is fully restored, there will be samples of water taken and sent to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency for testing. It will take about 18 hours for the test results to come back. If results are good, the boil order for the city will then be lifted.

While IAW had predicted a 36-hour boil order, Miller said it was more likely that the boil order will remain in effect until sometime Wednesday.

Miller said he felt that IAW’s Gabe Bowden and his crew had done a fine job of working to restore service and also working with the city to keep everyone informed and working toward the same goal of serving the community and keeping the community safe during an emergency situation.

Miller said he knew that IAW crews had been on the job all night working to fix the pumps and that they got one pump up and running almost immediately.

[At a tour of the Illinois American Water South Plant a few years ago, Dave Schonauer of IAW explained that increasing and maintaining water pressure during an active fire event is critical to the success of the fire department. It can also be critical to water customers if the pressure is not increased and decreased properly. He said that when a fire is called, the IAW is notified and staff begin working to increase the water pressure so that firefighters will have sufficient pressure coming from the hydrants. The pressure cannot be increased too quickly because if it is, it will burst underground lines and cause serious damage and cessation of water service to IAW customers.]
 

Miller said that the city does not have sufficient water pressure right now for fighting fires, but they are well prepared. He said water can be pumped from Lincoln Lakes using strainers to remove any debris during a large fire event. He said right now the city has 10,000 gallons of water ready for any fire that could erupt. He noted that every fire department in the county has tank trucks and all are on standby with water ready to bring to Lincoln in the event of an emergency. Refills would then come from Lincoln Lakes as needed.

While water pressure is coming up, Miller said that conservation is still needed by Lincoln citizens and businesses because many entities in Lincoln have built in fire suppression systems. Those systems need all the water pressure if an emergency would arise, so being conservative is again critical to keeping the entire community safe.

Kent Froebe also spoke at the briefing about the decision to cancel school on Monday. He said he understood that closing school causes some issues for working parents who have to then find day care or sitters for children, but it was in the best interest of the children that they not attend school on Monday.

He said that he began having conversations with IAW at approximately 5 a.m. on Monday and spoke with officials from the company every thirty minutes getting updates on the water pressure situation. Froebe said at 7:20 a.m. it was apparent that water pressure was not going to be fully restored in time for school, so he made the decision to cancel classes at all five of the District 27 buildings.

Froebe said that the lack of water pressure was impacting Adams School and Northwest School the most severely, but all buildings were impacted somewhat. Froebe said that the primary concern for having children in the building was the sanitary conditions. He said the school has plans in place to handle food preparation for students, but toilet flushing was a big concern.

While Illinois American Water offered to provide drinking water for the students, the decision made later on Monday was that Lincoln District 27 Schools would NOT hold classes on Tuesday either. Lincoln Community High School has also announced it will be closed on Tuesday.
 

Lincoln Mayor Seth Goodman said that he knows this is frustrating for businesses and residents and the most important thing he can say right now is to please be patient. He said it was clear that Illinois American Water is doing everything it can to restore complete water service to the community, but like many other things, it is a process that takes time to do correctly.

Director Fulscher said on Monday morning that the years of trainings and practice disasters the EMA have conducted with community leaders has paid off very well in the case of this recent water emergency. He said that everyone was prepared to take on their responsibilities and to take care of the community during this event. He gave kudos to Lincoln Fire Chief Mark Miller who had taken the lead in this emergency, and said that Miller had done an outstanding job.

On Monday afternoon, Illinois American Water issued another re-cap of the situation. Most of what they reported was similar to what was discussed during the briefing. That communication is also posted in today’s edition of Lincoln Daily News.

[Nila Smith]