FLORENCE, SC (WPDE) — Florence city leaders said the water throughout the city is healthy and back on track afteran unexpected issue with the surface water treatment plant forced it to be taken offline.
The issue caused low water pressure throughout the system leaving thousands with no water and low pressure.
Florence city council members held an emergency meeting Saturday morning to discuss what happened.
According to City Manager Scotty Davis, city staff did not follow standard operating procedures.
He said executive-level staff should have been notified early on about the system wide water issue, but they weren’t.
According to city leaders, flooding from tropical storm Debby caused the treatment plant to take on water that contained “highly-organic material.”
READ MORE: ‘Unexpected issue’ at Florence treatment plant causes low water pressure
Quite frankly, it was a failure on our staff’s part, said Scotty.
City council said they understand the impact of the water system failure on the entire community, and they’ve taken measures to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
City Councilwoman LaShanda NeSmith assured the public that all parties are working on preventing future problems, and crews should have communicated more effectively.
The city staff, definitely not the council members. The city staff that monitors our water and stuff, they’re the ones that kinda dropped the ball on this and basically got behind on communicating to everybody that this was going on, said Smith.
The boil water advisory remains in effect until further notice, officials said they hope to lift the boil water advisory on Sunday.
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