Asheville resumes production at water treatment plant

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina mountain city where thousands were facing water outages will resume production Wednesday at a water treatment facility at the heart of the problem, officials said.

David Melton, Asheville’s director of water resources, said the production facility in the southern part of the county will come back online Wednesday but the process of restoring service will be slow. Melton said about 38,000 people were affected by problems including outages and boil-water advisories.

Melton said the facility went down Saturday as some filters and other equipment froze. He said the water system can normally function without that plant but that frozen and burst pipes throughout the system drew down the water supply and exacerbated the problem.

City officials said that those who are able to get their own drinking water from stores should do so. But those unable to get drinking water can call 211 and the local government will bring them water.

Thousands have been dealing with water outages or a boil-water advisory after days of extremely cold temperatures in the mountain city of about 94,000.