The city of Selma and the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery are among those communities waking up with burst pipes and water issues. Days of freezing temperatures in Deep South areas that usually freeze for only hours are threatening dozens of water systems as burst pipes leak millions of gallons of water. Dozens of water systems had either boil advisories in place because of low pressure or warned of bigger catastrophes if leaks from broken pipes weren't found and water shut off. In Jackson, Mississippi, residents were required over Christmas to boil water. Charleston, South Carolina, normally puts out 50 million gallons of water on a winter day, but over the holiday weekend the output was about 100 million gallons as thousands of homes and business had undetected broken pipes.
AL.com reports leaks in the Alabama State Capitol and the studios of Alabama Public Television. The Alabama Daily News quotes city officials in Selma warning residents to check for leaking pipes, otherwise the city faces the possibility of a water shortage. This is already happening in Shreveport, Louisiana, where some residents had no water yesterday. Workers at a food bank in Greenville, South Carolina, opened their doors to a rush of water and were trying to save $1 million in food. Police departments around Atlanta said their 911 systems were being overwhelmed by unnecessary emergency calls about broken pipes. Dozens of water systems either had boil advisories in place because of low pressure or warned of bigger catastrophes if leaks from broken pipes weren't found and water shut off. The culprit was temperatures that dropped below freezing Thursday or early Friday and have spent only a few hours if any above 32 degrees since then. Water expands when it freezes, bursting pipes that aren't protected. Then when the temperature rises, those broken pipes start leaking hundreds or thousands of gallons of water.
