ALEXANDRIA, La. (KALB) - The winter and ice storms in mid-February exposed infrastructure problems in Louisiana cities. The storm left nearly one-fourth of the state without drinking water, including Alexandria.
The City of Alexandria was under a boil advisory for nearly a week. The dramatic drop in water pressure happened because of power outages at the well site in the Kisatchie National Forest in Woodworth. Michael Marcotte, Alexandria Director of Utilities, believed the outage lasted nearly 14 hours. Marcotte said an ice storm creates a unique situation for Southern cities that are typically prone to wind and hurricanes.
“During the height of Hurricane Laura, there wasn’t electricity within 50 miles of Alexandria,” Marcotte said. “It took longer to restore power, but the demand wasn’t as large. In this (winter) storm, power restored relatively quickly, but the demand was just astronomical.”
How does a city like Alexandria deplete its entire water supply, leaving residents without necessities to survive like drinking water? Marcotte said it all centers around the wells at Kisatchie. He said because the wells are in Woodworth, Cleco is responsible for power instead of Alexandria. The 30 wells in Woodworth are a major supplier of the city’s water supply. Marcotte said when the wells went offline, water production in the city dropped dramatically leading to water pressure issues and boil advisories.
“The larger issue with the water system was consumption. The consumption was about three times the normal rate,” he said. “Even once all our wells were available and pumping both inside the city and Kisatchie, we just cannot keep up with demand.”
At Kisatchie, only eight of the 30 wells were able to get generator power. KALB asked Marcotte if more generators could have given citizens quicker access to drinking water.
“In this particular event, even if every well had a generator, it wouldn’t have made a difference,” Marcotte said. “We were pumping an excess of 21 million a day. Normally, we pump 8 million a day.”
Marcotte said the excessive water use prompted Mayor Jeff Hall to ask residents and businesses to conserve water and allow the water tanks to refill and ultimately restore water pressure.
“I think it’s a combination of things, it was folks who did hoard, and they did hoard a little water,” said Marcotte. “They did fill up bathtub and buckets. You also had older homes dripping pipes to keep the water flowing to avoid frozen pipes.”
The city said those things put a strain on the water supply and made it more difficult to restore water pressure.
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