Thousands in Henderson County are facing a Water Outage

LEXINGTON, Tenn. - The cold weather has left much of Henderson County without water since Friday.

The problems are frozen pipes and leaks.

While crews from Lexington Utilities work to fix the problems, the utility is giving cases of water and filling up anyone’s containers at the fairgrounds on First Street in Lexington.

Lexington Utilities general manager Michael Harper says leaks were found and are in the process of being fixed.

“What we are currently doing is valving off parts of our system that have the most water leaks, building up the pressure of our tanks, filling our tanks, building up the pressure, and we’re going to systematically open up the valves to further parts of the system to get our customers back on.”

There are currently about 5,500 people with little water pressure or no water at all.

Lexington Utilities workers are among those people with little or no water.

“We still have several of our workers who have basically been here since Friday nonstop all the way through the Christmas holiday that don’t have water themselves at their homes and they’re still working through this, and we have a facility here where they can take a shower and just continue working.”

Along with the bottled water being distributed at the fairgrounds, there are bathing and laundry facilities there as well, and tanks are being filled at Lexington Utilities.

Henderson County mayor Robbie Mccready sympathizes with those who have no water.

“Water is life. We’ve learned through past experiences that sometimes we can live without electricity, but we need water for basic needs.”

Mayor Mccready encourages people to visit the county website at www.hendersoncountytn.gov and sign up for an automated system called “code red '' for updates and more information on the water system.