Village Water System customers find ways to cope with water outage, boil advisory

BOSSIER PARISH, La. (KSLA) — A staff walkout.

An unexplained computer crash.

A major water line break.

A boil advisory, which was lifted the afternoon of Wednesday, March 8.

And a law enforcement investigation.

So much has happened in just days for Village Water, one of the smallest water systems in the ArkLaTex. It serves nearly 4,000 customers near Haughton in Bossier Parish.

Now it’s up to parish officials and investigators to determine whether it’s all connected.

Village Water System stated March 8 that as a result of the failure and as previously approved by the water system’s members at their last annual meeting, the board of directors of Village Water System chose to implement an immediate merger with the Bossier Parish Police Jury’s Consolidated Waterworks/Sewerage District 1.

The merger allowed the Police Jury to immediately provide administrative, operational and maintenance assistance to address the water supply issue. The Bossier Parish Police Jury is now actively engaged in operating and maintaining Village Water System.

“Yesterday, to use the restroom, you know. Oh, I’ll tell you, it was pretty rough yesterday watching them babies walk down that road with toilet paper and a shovel,” resident Samuel Snyder said. “It’s sad when you got to do that.”

BOIL ADVISORY LIFTED

👉🏼 Here’s what to do after a boil advisory is lifted.

Some Village Water System customers have had their very own unique ways of navigating these past few days after Monday’s major water line break just down the street from Synder’s home on Wafer Road.

[RELATED: Water outage impacts almost 4,000 in Haughton area]

“It was kind of rough, you know, when your lifeline gets cut off from you,” Snyder said. “It does hurt because I have animals and kids and stuff. You know, it’s inconvenient.”

That water line break was the latest of a trio of problems for Village Water System.

That pipeline leak now is fixed and the water is flowing again.

Plus, people now are answering the phones again inside the Village Water System office. The entire staff walked out Friday and did not return to work Monday.

“I mean, so we’re just assisting Village,” Bossier Parish administrator Butch Ford told KSLA News 12. “They called us Friday and told us that the employees were all leaving at 5 p.m. And, you know, we told them we would help them.”

The third strange incident in as many days was when Ford learned that the computer software that runs the entire water system crashed Monday morning, leaving everyone without water.

A crash of this nature is such a rare occurrence that he contacted the Bossier Sheriff’s Office to look into it.

“When I got to their office and looked at it, I immediately notified the sheriff’s department that something had shut the system down in the computer program,” Ford explained. “And I met with them and we’re getting them some more information so they can help us look into it.”

KSLA News 12′s Doug Warner: “So you’re concerned it could’ve been an intrusion from outside?”

Ford: “Yes, yes, it could’ve been. I asked the guy if he’d ever seen this before and he said no.”

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