Boil order extended as residents asked to conserve water after plant floods

HANNIBAL, Mo. (WGEM) - A boil order in Hannibal has been extended through Friday as utility officials say residents in and around Hannibal still need to conserve water after the basement in the treatment plant flooded Sunday afternoon.

BPW customers and Public Water Supply District One of Ralls County residents are under the conservation plan. Monday afternoon, PWSD and Board of Public Works issued a boil order for all customers in the service territories through Wednesday at 1 p.m. That order was extended Tuesday, when officials said the boil order would expire Friday at 1 p.m.

Places like the Hannibal Nutrition Center, which serves meals to dozens of people a day, had to switch gears fast.

"So anything that we cooked today, we used boiled water on and then for our dinner tonight we're making sure that we even boiled our coffee and tea to make sure we took care of that matter," Executive Director Debbie Catlett said. Ice was another concern for Catlett. So much so, workers went to a gas station to get enough for the day. Resident Tony Weldy said even he didn't fully understand how much water he used until Monday.

"I do realize it, but I don't realize what all you need clean water for, I guess sometimes, so washing dishes in the dishwasher even or even taking a bath or shower," Weldy said. BPW Director of Operations Heath Hall still isn't sure how this happened, but the department is already trying to figure out ways to make sure they don't find themselves in this situation again.

"We have several ideas in the works on how to prevent this from happening again, from putting some extra alarms in, to raising the motors up even higher," Hall said. "There are several things in the works, so we're going to try. Many of them very cheap."

Catlett said it's a wakeup call for anyone who takes their drinking water for granted.

"It's terrifying to think about it," Catlett said. "We all count on it, we're all so used to it. We're not ready for it really so we're all just going to have to do our best."

Crews worked Sunday night and Monday cleaning debris and monitoring water levels. General Manager Robert Stevenson says the system has been using clean water out of storage tanks. The tanks hold about 6,000,000 gallons of water and 1,000,000 gallons was lost during the incident. The city uses approximately 3,500,000 gallons of water per day.

Affected customers are asked to conserve water in the following ways:

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Boil order extended as residents asked to conserve water after plant floods