HOT SPRINGS, Ark. — Many people across the state have been dealing with burst pipes, including the city of Hot Springs.
“Commercial and residential, we've had a couple of main breaks, that primarily the bursts and pipes are on the customer side of the meter, we're out with crews shutting those meters off,” said City Manager, Bill Burrough.
Burrough explained that their water department has been working around the clock to fix any leaks caused by pipes bursting.
“When there's a burst and you have free-flowing water and you have several 100 of those, the tanks actually deplete faster than we can fill them,” said Burrough. “So, we're fortunate in the evenings we've been able to catch up because most people are asleep.”
Tourism being a popular industry in the city has made things a bit more challenging.
“We have a lot of rental units, a lot of out-of-town owners, so they may not even know they have a leak,” Burrough explained. “We have staff that are making those phone calls to the owners, we primarily look at the largest leaks and kind of work down that list.”
Right now, the city has been trying to avoid losing water pressure and has asked people to do their part by limiting use where they can.
“We recommend dripping faucets, but it's the pencil-thick streams that we don't recommend. All you need is a drip,” He said.
He also added that they saw production go up by about 7 million gallons within the last two days, and explained that with those kinds of changes, it's important to act fast.
Burrough also said that this will help as they work to keep up with demand.
“We have both of our plants operating at maximum output, but we saw our tank still depleting. And we're in better shape today after last night than we have been the last three days,” Burrough described.