Water outage prompts city to review notification system

HIGH SPRINGS – The City of High Springs is looking into a more direct way to notify customers when a power or water outage occurs as happened recently when the water supply was cut to residents in the southeast area of the city.

City Manager Ed Booth said in a recent interview that although the city followed protocol with the water outage, he believes there may be a more direct way using the 911 system to contact affected residents by cell phone or with text messages.

“The city is looking into how we can make that happen,” said Booth. “We will also be notifying residents using our marquee and will record a message so people calling into City Hall will know what is going on and what they need to do," he said.

Meanwhile, the city lost 690,000 gallons of water when the water supply was cut at approximately 5 p.m. on March 20. The accident left homes in the southeast part of the city without water overnight. Water pressure was restored to most homes by 7 a.m. the following morning. But because water pressure was lost for more than two hours, the city was required to go through a mandatory “boil water to drink”" period.

City Manager Booth issued a press release on March 21, alerting citizens to the necessity to boil their drinking water. The Alachua County Health Department sampled water daily and alerted the city it could lift the drinking water ban on March 24.

The outage occurred when the driver of a company trimming trees for Duke Electric drove over a water hydrant at S.E. 7th Ave. and S.E. 3rd St. The truck was owned by Buford Tree Service and was driven by Jackie Carl Huggins according to the accident report.

City officials have contacted Duke Electric's insurance carrier. The city suggests that anyone who suffered an economic impact due to the accident save their receipts or document their loss in the best way possible and send the information to Duke Energy's insurance carrier, Sedgwick Insurance at 800-541-0139, Ext. 47114.

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