JEFFERSON PARISH, La. — It was business as usual Tuesday night at Blue Tomato Bistro and Cantina in Jefferson Parish.
“We already had a bunch of bottled water from the whole saltwater thing that never really happened, so we were good to go. Everything we prep is in the morning,” said waitress Kelly Crochet.
Good thing because just down the street on Jefferson Highway, right next to the water plant, a major water main broke Tuesday afternoon, impacting the entire East Bank of Jefferson Parish, including Harahan and Kenner.
“This is truly the worst place that this could have happened. This is the start of the distribution system,” said Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng.
Lee Sheng says that the system is what supplies drinking water to homes and businesses on the East Bank. Crews spent all evening trying to get the water to stop flowing into the streets.
“We know where it’s broken. We don’t know the extent of the break,” said Lee Sheng.
Parish leaders believe the age of the water line and recent weather may be to blame for the break.
“The fact that we lost the transmission line that comes out of the plant, we were losing so much water we couldn’t make it fast enough,” said Water Department Director Sidney Bazley, III.
Bazley says breaks have happened before, but never to this extent. Getting pressure back into the system will take time and comes with a boil water advisory.
"This recovery and the restoration and the pressure back into the system is going to come in phases,” said Lee Sheng.
Because of that, some restaurants closed early Tuesday. Wednesday is up in the air. That’s also the case at Blue Tomato.
“It’s amazing how much you actually need water throughout the day,” said Crochet. “So, we just do what we can here.”
Lee Sheng says places that do open likely won’t have water.
“If you’re a restaurant that depends on the parish water system to serve food, it’s not drinkable,” said Lee Sheng.
As the parish works to build the pressure back up, everyone on the East Bank is being asked to conserve water. Even when the pressure comes back, Lee Sheng says it’ll take time for the boil water advisory to be lifted. Water testing must happen first.
“Please do not think, ‘Oh my pressure is back, it seems normal, I can start drinking this water again,’ absolutely not,” said Lee Sheng.
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