‘Inconvenience’: Officials respond to major water main break in Anson County

ANSON COUNTY, N.C. — Long-time Anson County residents are calling the water situation unprecedented.

“In my 26 years of working for the town, I’ve never known a complete outage to the whole county,” said Lilesville Public Utilities Director Marty Morton Jr.

After a midday water main break took out water services countywide, municipalities like the town of Lilesville were left unable to purchase anymore from the county.

“At the time of the outage, we were down to about a half a tank of water,” said Morton.

He says this potentially leaves the county’s residents and businesses in a very stark, ominous position.

“Save some water, run and buy some water, because we’re anticipating some time after midnight we will be out of water,” Morton said.

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In response, the county requested and received bottled water from the North Carolina Department of Emergency Management.

“32 pallets of water,” said Anson County Emergency Management Director Rodney Diggs. He says each pallet carries 84 cases of water.

Water for drinking, bathing, and cooking isn’t the only concern. There’s also the ability to respond to emergencies such as fires.

“In the event of a fire, we do have portable pumps staged so that we can get water out of the ponds and stuff like that,” Diggs said.

Officials are hoping this inconvenience doesn’t turn into longer-term crisis.

“We’re hoping that by the morning the water is back on, if not, we’ll have to be reaching out to get more water to hand out to citizens,” said Diggs.

The emergency management director told Channel 9 when water service is restored residents can expect there to be a boil water advisory, and that water pressure will be low until the county’s tanks and reservoirs are refilled.