Prairie Grove Utilities – Extreme Winter Weather Event Important Update

Temperatures plunged into the low double digits last night and the system is struggling.

Since yesterday evening, water demand has been exceeding the capacity of the system and water levels in the ground storage tank have dropped significantly.

We have had crews on-site multiple times overnight and again today.

The well is running and the interconnect with Diboll is open, but it’s not keeping up.

At current rates, we anticipate the system will run dry around 2 a.m. tonight.

Water system crews have found two customer-side leaks today already. Temperatures overnight tonight are forecasted to dive back into the middle teens. We anticipate temperatures rising above freezing around noon tomorrow.

Pipes that have frozen and burst will begin to leak dramatically after temperatures rise above freezing. We are asking all residents to inspect their property for water leaks under and around their homes. If you find a leak, turn off your water as quickly as possible.

If the demand doesn’t decrease between now and this evening, we may need to shut the system down overnight to prevent it running dry and give it a chance to partially catch up.

We will have crews on-site beginning tomorrow mid-morning. If you need assistance turning off your water, please post that request on the Prairie Grove Facebook page. We will be monitoring this group page and respond.

***In the meantime, we’re asking customers to minimize using dripping faucets to prevent lines from freezing.***

Take all reasonable preventive measures to insulate your pipes. Unfortunately, the system as it exists today doesn’t have the capacity to protect everyone’s pipes by leaving the water running.

Plans are in place for some stop-gap upgrades in the coming months to carry us to a complete set of upgrades over the next three years, but for this event, we’re going to have to pull together once more to get through.