Mayor asks Wichitans not to hoard bottled water; urges patience during water crisis

Mayor Brandon Whipple is asking residents of Wichita and the surrounding area to remain calm after one of the city’s main waterlines broke near McAdams Park, placing all of the city’s water customers under a boil water advisory.

“I’m asking folks to make sure that they not only follow the recommendations to boil water but also reach out to people you’re close to and let them know that they should be doing the same,” he said.

“We are utilizing all of our outreach efforts to get the word out because we want to keep people safe,” he said. “I’m asking Wichitans to make phone calls to people you know, to your family, and pass on this message as well.”

He’s also urging residents against making a run on bottled water.

“This isn’t our first crisis, and hopefully this one will be short-lived,” he said. “Just like the other hardships that we’ve had to endure as a community, be mindful of your neighbor, be mindful of the fact that we’re all in this together. So if you’re going out to buy water, please buy what you need.

“If you’re able to boil water, please leave the bottled water on the shelves for people who might not have the ability to boil water at home,” Whipple said.

“There’s no indication that we won’t get this fixed in a timely manner, so let’s just use our common sense to move forward and make sure we approach the situation as a community, by not only thinking about ourselves but also our families and our neighbors.”

Walmart shopper Beth Brewer said she was stocking up to avoid boiling water for her family and pets.

“We have three big dogs, so I need water for them instead of boiling the water,” Brewer said.

By early evening, the Walmart at Pawnee and Broadway in south Wichita had started posting signs on pallets of bottled water asking shoppers not to over-purchase.

“Due to circumstances beyond our control we are limiting bottled water purchases to 2 cases per customer. Sorry for the inconvenience,” signs read.

“I did see people’s full carts stacked with water, even though they said two cases,” said one shopper, who identified himself only as Wesley.

“I didn’t want to take as much as a lot of people in there were taking,” he said. “I just want to make sure I have enough if this thing goes on for a couple days.”

He said he’s been skeptical of Wichita’s water for some time.

“I’ve always thought the Wichita water was kind of dirty anyways, but I was just thinking that something like this would eventually happen.”

At 5:44 p.m., the city sent out a news release saying the main break had been identified and isolated and the system pressure had returned to normal. But the city remained under a boil water advisory.

The city is still investigating the break. It was a 42-inch water main near 17th and I-135.

City of Wichita water customers should take the following precautions until the boil advisory ends:

▪ Boil water for one minute prior to drinking or food preparation or use bottled water.

▪ Dispose of ice cubes and do not use ice from a household automatic ice maker.

▪ Disinfect dishes and other food contact surfaces by immersion for at least one minute in clean tap water that contains one teaspoon of unscented household bleach per gallon of water.

▪ Water used for bathing does not generally need to be boiled.

▪ Supervise children while they’re bathing and make sure water is not ingested.

▪ Persons with cuts or severe rashes may wish to consult their physicians.

Other public water supply systems under a boil advisory due to the break are Sedgwick County Rural Water Districts 1, 2 and 3, Benton, El Paso Water Company (city of Derby), Valley Center, Rose Hill and Kechi.

The scope of the main break is not yet known, but all of the city’s water customers lost water pressure, which can lead to bacterial contamination.

The state of Kansas also issued a warning for several water systems in Sedgwick and Butler counties that buy water from the city of Wichita.

The area in the city that experienced the most immediate impact from the break reside in the neighborhood near 17th and I-135, where residents trudged through flooded streets and parking lots searching for answers.

“I’d sure like to know exactly what happened,” said LeeArthur Pink, a resident in the McAdams Neighborhood who had water within a few feet of his front door. “It’s flooded all over down here. There’s homes, there’s apartments, there’s churches, there’s homeless people living in tents — this could have been really bad.”

Most of the water drained into the floodway canal that runs along I-135. But a steady flow ran into driveways and streets, flooding intersections along 17th Streeet from Mathewson to Hydraulic. The city blocked several exit and entry ramps onto the highway near a site where water was gushing out of the ground.

The Eagle previously reported on critical state of the city’s aging water infrastructure in 2019, based on an engineering study that found the entire system was at a “significant risk” of failure. It found 100% of the city’s raw water pipes were in “very poor” condition as of 2017.

Deferred maintenance has piled up over the years, and fixing the existing infrastructure is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars in the next decade, The Eagle found.

At an emergency news conference Thursday afternoon, Director of Public Works and Utilities Alan King said the break was in the water distribution system.

“The problem was with the distribution system,” King said. “Once it leaves the water treatment plant, it goes out into pipes that then feed into the individual neighborhoods and homes. That’s where this problem was.”

He said he doesn’t yet know exactly how old the pipe is that broke.

“My sense is it’s not 100 years old, but it could be decades old,” he said.

Boil water advisories are required within 24 hours under federal law when a water system loses pressure. Loss of pressure can cause drinking water to be inadequately treated.

“Inadequately treated water may contain disease-causing organisms,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency. “These organisms include bacteria, viruses, and parasites which can cause symptoms such as diarrhea, cramps, nausea, headaches, or other symptoms. They may pose a special health risk for infants, young children, some of the elderly and people with severely compromised immune systems.”

This story was originally published October 7, 2021 at 6:09 PM.