TN Town Ran Out Of Water
Tennessee Town Runs Out of Water
By GREG BLUESTEIN,
Posted: 2007-11-01 22:30:40
Filed Under: Nation News
ORME, Tenn. (Nov. 1) - As twilight falls over this Tennessee town, Mayor Tony Reames drives up a dusty dirt road to the community's towering water tank and begins his nightly ritual in front of a rusty metal valve.With a twist of the wrist, he releases the tank's meager water supply, and suddenly this sleepy town is alive with activity. Washing machines whir, kitchen sinks fill and showers run.
About three hours later, Reames will return and reverse the process, cutting off water to the town's 145 residents.The severe drought tightening like a vise across the Southeast has threatened the water supply of cities large and small, sending politicians scrambling for solutions. But Orme, about 40 miles west of Chattanooga and 150 miles northwest of Atlanta, is a town where the worst-case scenario has already come to pass: The water has run out.The mighty waterfall that fed the mountain hamlet has been reduced to a trickle, and now the creek running through the center of town is dry.
Three days a week, the volunteer fire chief hops in a 1961 fire truck at 5:30 a.m. - before the school bus blocks the narrow road - and drives a few miles to an Alabama fire hydrant. He meets with another truck from nearby New Hope, Ala. The two drivers make about a dozen runs back and forth, hauling about 20,000 gallons of water from the hydrant to Orme's tank.
"I'm not God. I can't make it rain. But I'll get you the water I can get you," Reames tells residents.Between 6 and 9 every evening, the town scurries. Residents rush home from their jobs at the carpet factories outside town to turn on washing machines. Mothers start cooking supper. Fathers fill up water jugs. Kids line up to take showers.
"You never get used to it," says Cheryl Evans, a 55-year-old who has lived in town all her life. "When you're used to having water and you ain't got it, it's strange. I can't tell you how many times I've turned on the faucet before remembering the water's been cut."
"You have to be in a rush," she says. "At 6 p.m., I start my supper, turn on my washer, fill all my water jugs, take my shower."
During its peak in the 1930s, Orme (rhymes with "storm") boasted a population of thousands, a jail, three schools and a hotel. But those boom times are long gone.
After the coal miners went on strike in the 1940s, the company shut down the mine and the town has never been the same. Not a single business is left in Orme. The only reminder of the town's glory days is an aging wooden rail depot that sits three feet above the eerily quiet streets.
Although changes are coming - cable TV arrived just a few years ago - cell phones still don't work there. The main road into town is barely wide enough for two cars to pass one another. Dogs wander the streets, farm animals can be heard all around town, and kids gather outside the one-room City Hall to ride their bikes.
"It's like walking back in time. It's Never-Never Land here," says Ernie Dawson, a 47-year-old gospel singer who grew up in Orme.
Water restrictions in Orme are nothing new. But residents say it's never been this bad.
Even last summer, as the water supply dwindled, city leaders cut off water only at night. But in August, Reames took the most extreme step yet and restricted use to three hours a day.
Elected in December, he has now spent $8,000 of the city's $13,000 annual budget to deal with the crisis. Most of the money went toward trucking water from Alabama.
He has tried to fill the gaps with modest fundraisers, but it hasn't been easy. A Halloween carnival last week cleared about $375 and a dog show two weeks ago made $300.
The town has received a $377,590 emergency grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that Reames hopes will be Orme's salvation. A utility crew is laying a 2 1/2-mile pipe to connect Orme to the Bridgeport, Ala., water supply. The work could be finished by Thanksgiving.
"It's not a short-term solution," Reames says. "It is THE solution."
He says the crisis in Orme could serve as a warning to other communities to conserve water before it's too late.
"I feel for the folks in Atlanta," he says, his gravelly voice barely rising above the sound of rushing water from the town's tank. "We can survive. We're 145 people. You've got 4.5 million people down there. What are they going to do? It's a scary thought."
11/6 - From The Grist.org
The Weight of Water U.S. states face water shortages The catastrophic California wildfires got all the press, but it's worth paying attention to an equally intimidating but slower-moving threat: water shortages. From Georgia to Massachusetts, Florida to New York, the Great Lakes to the West, U.S. states are getting thirstier. In fact, the government predicts that at least 36 states will face challenges from inadequate water supplies within five years, thanks to a combination of rising temperatures, drought, population growth, sprawl, waste, and overuse. "Is it a crisis? If we don't do some decent water planning, it could be," says Jack Hoffbuhr of the American Water Works Association. Officials hope that measures such as water recycling, efficiency, and desalination will save the day. In the meanwhile, local officials are tightening their grasp on any available supplies, and debates over how to address the problem are simmering.
Theory From Leslie
http://kermitsteam.blogspot.com/2007/09/theory-on-drought-monitoring.html
Another Theory From Leslie
http://kermitsteam.blogspot.com/2007/08/desertification-theory.html
By GREG BLUESTEIN,
Posted: 2007-11-01 22:30:40
Filed Under: Nation News
ORME, Tenn. (Nov. 1) - As twilight falls over this Tennessee town, Mayor Tony Reames drives up a dusty dirt road to the community's towering water tank and begins his nightly ritual in front of a rusty metal valve.With a twist of the wrist, he releases the tank's meager water supply, and suddenly this sleepy town is alive with activity. Washing machines whir, kitchen sinks fill and showers run.
About three hours later, Reames will return and reverse the process, cutting off water to the town's 145 residents.The severe drought tightening like a vise across the Southeast has threatened the water supply of cities large and small, sending politicians scrambling for solutions. But Orme, about 40 miles west of Chattanooga and 150 miles northwest of Atlanta, is a town where the worst-case scenario has already come to pass: The water has run out.The mighty waterfall that fed the mountain hamlet has been reduced to a trickle, and now the creek running through the center of town is dry.
Three days a week, the volunteer fire chief hops in a 1961 fire truck at 5:30 a.m. - before the school bus blocks the narrow road - and drives a few miles to an Alabama fire hydrant. He meets with another truck from nearby New Hope, Ala. The two drivers make about a dozen runs back and forth, hauling about 20,000 gallons of water from the hydrant to Orme's tank.
"I'm not God. I can't make it rain. But I'll get you the water I can get you," Reames tells residents.Between 6 and 9 every evening, the town scurries. Residents rush home from their jobs at the carpet factories outside town to turn on washing machines. Mothers start cooking supper. Fathers fill up water jugs. Kids line up to take showers.
"You never get used to it," says Cheryl Evans, a 55-year-old who has lived in town all her life. "When you're used to having water and you ain't got it, it's strange. I can't tell you how many times I've turned on the faucet before remembering the water's been cut."
"You have to be in a rush," she says. "At 6 p.m., I start my supper, turn on my washer, fill all my water jugs, take my shower."
During its peak in the 1930s, Orme (rhymes with "storm") boasted a population of thousands, a jail, three schools and a hotel. But those boom times are long gone.
After the coal miners went on strike in the 1940s, the company shut down the mine and the town has never been the same. Not a single business is left in Orme. The only reminder of the town's glory days is an aging wooden rail depot that sits three feet above the eerily quiet streets.
Although changes are coming - cable TV arrived just a few years ago - cell phones still don't work there. The main road into town is barely wide enough for two cars to pass one another. Dogs wander the streets, farm animals can be heard all around town, and kids gather outside the one-room City Hall to ride their bikes.
"It's like walking back in time. It's Never-Never Land here," says Ernie Dawson, a 47-year-old gospel singer who grew up in Orme.
Water restrictions in Orme are nothing new. But residents say it's never been this bad.
Even last summer, as the water supply dwindled, city leaders cut off water only at night. But in August, Reames took the most extreme step yet and restricted use to three hours a day.
Elected in December, he has now spent $8,000 of the city's $13,000 annual budget to deal with the crisis. Most of the money went toward trucking water from Alabama.
He has tried to fill the gaps with modest fundraisers, but it hasn't been easy. A Halloween carnival last week cleared about $375 and a dog show two weeks ago made $300.
The town has received a $377,590 emergency grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that Reames hopes will be Orme's salvation. A utility crew is laying a 2 1/2-mile pipe to connect Orme to the Bridgeport, Ala., water supply. The work could be finished by Thanksgiving.
"It's not a short-term solution," Reames says. "It is THE solution."
He says the crisis in Orme could serve as a warning to other communities to conserve water before it's too late.
"I feel for the folks in Atlanta," he says, his gravelly voice barely rising above the sound of rushing water from the town's tank. "We can survive. We're 145 people. You've got 4.5 million people down there. What are they going to do? It's a scary thought."
11/6 - From The Grist.org
The Weight of Water U.S. states face water shortages The catastrophic California wildfires got all the press, but it's worth paying attention to an equally intimidating but slower-moving threat: water shortages. From Georgia to Massachusetts, Florida to New York, the Great Lakes to the West, U.S. states are getting thirstier. In fact, the government predicts that at least 36 states will face challenges from inadequate water supplies within five years, thanks to a combination of rising temperatures, drought, population growth, sprawl, waste, and overuse. "Is it a crisis? If we don't do some decent water planning, it could be," says Jack Hoffbuhr of the American Water Works Association. Officials hope that measures such as water recycling, efficiency, and desalination will save the day. In the meanwhile, local officials are tightening their grasp on any available supplies, and debates over how to address the problem are simmering.
Theory From Leslie
http://kermitsteam.blogspot.com/2007/09/theory-on-drought-monitoring.html
Another Theory From Leslie
http://kermitsteam.blogspot.com/2007/08/desertification-theory.html
Labels: drought, TN, water, water conservation
posted by Leslie at
11:04 PM
4 Comments:
Most Middle East countries, cruise ships, naval ships and the like avoid runing out of water beacause they built DESALIZANATION PLANTS...WE KEEP VOTING IN THE SAME IDIOTS IN OUR LOCAL, STATE AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS BUT DON'T DIRECT THEM IN WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE IN OUR COMMUNITIES. WE AS CITIZENS NEED TO DEMAND AND HOLD ACCOUNTABLE OUR GOVERNMENT IN PROVIDING SERVICES WHICH WE PAY WITH OUR HARD EARNED DOLLAR. OUR TAXES PEOPLE ARE BEING SPENT ELSEWHERE IN THE WORLD WE OUR COUNTRY FALLS APART.
By
Anonymous, At
November 8, 2007 at 3:26 PM
A city of 4.3 million was going for a year with just 1hr of water each day. That's the City of Chennai in the souther part of India.
So a town of 145 going on 3hrs of water each day is not the end of the world, y'know.
By
Venkatesh, At
November 8, 2007 at 3:32 PM
It seems like one part of the country is flooding while another is in a drought. It would be a huge project but constructing some system to move water from a flooded part of the country to part of the country in a drought. It could be done using a labor force like the public works projects of the past. There are plenty of people that are going to be bad finiancial shape soon.
By
Anonymous, At
November 8, 2007 at 4:44 PM
If only you were THE Peter O Toole! Incredible man!
Anyway, while I agree desalinization plants are a great start, they aren't the answer.
I also agree there are many areas of the world where water doesn't exist near humans or very little.
There are several issues within this article.
First - the fact that an area of the country that has never run out of water, IS running out of water.
That a community which has not over used its water supply has run out of water.
That our nation is gluttenous for water and oil. Water, we think, is free. It always has been. But it isn't any longer.
The solution is multifaceted. We need to relearn how to use far less water. We need to learn how to reUSE water. We need to learn to make do with less impervious ground cover.
This is just individuals. This is industry, gov't, communities, farms, retail, restaurants. It's endemic in our society to overuse water.
That's what needs to change and this article is proof.
By
Leslie, At
November 8, 2007 at 5:58 PM
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