September 27th was a day just like any other until it wasn’t. When the City of Kingfisher’s Water Department employees showed up to work that morning, they were in disbelief at what they found. The water treatment plant pit (where all the pumps, motors, and pipes are) had flooded and was full of water. After speaking with city officials, it was determined that a plastic pipe had broken, flooding the pumps and causing the motors to short out. Not long after accessing the situation, The City of Kingfisher made a post on Facebook stating that the water pumps were experiencing issues. The city’s water towers had water but were unable to pump said water. Parts of Kingfisher were without water, like the schools and most homes, if not all. However, it seemed as though other areas were immune to this issue. Most restaurants and gas stations still had limited or no water. The City asked for people to use water conservatively and to turn off all irrigation systems. They also said, “Your help and patience are appreciated as they work to solve this problem. They are working to resolve this issue as soon as possible.” At this point, the schools had brought in port-a-potties in hopes of finishing the rest of the school day, assuming that the water problem would be fixed swiftly. Not knowing when the water would come back on, Kingfisher County Emergency Management Ryan Deatherage worked fast. By 10:30 am, Deatherage had an emergency water availability station set up at the Kingfisher County Fairgrounds. Loyal Fire Department and Kingfisher County Districts 1 & 3 helped with potable water. Cimarron Electric Cooperative, M6 Wrecker & Recovery, Jet Specialty, and Devon Energy provided cases of water, and the Big 4 Fire Department handed them out. Logan County Emergency Management and Blaine County Emergency Management both aided in the emergency by providing water buffalo for drinking water. Logan County was stationed at the Fairgrounds, and Blaine County was stationed at the Kingfisher County Jail. Drilling Fluid Services were on site supporting the Kingfisher Fire Department in case of a structure fire. All county fire departments were on standby in the event of a fire. The Oklahoma State Department also helped out by providing water buffalos for the Kingfisher Mercy Hospital and all medical facilities, including the nursing homes. The City of Dover allowed tankers to fill up the town’s water and distribute it to those who needed it. Community individuals, as well as other organizations and counties like Hennessey Fire
Department, Cashion Fire Department, Woods County, Roger Mills County, Payne County, Alfalfa County, and the Church of the Nazarene all lent a helping hand. Around 10:50 am, the Kingfisher Public Schools Board of Education decided to make the call. All the schools made posts to their social media pages stating that the bus routes would start running at 11:30 am. “Parents may pick up students now if they wish. Sack lunches are available in the cafeteria. Thank you for your understanding. If you need to make changes to your students’ end-of-day plans, please call your student’s office,” said the Kingfisher Board of Education. By this point, it had been 6 hours since the pump motors decided to take a swim. Concerned citizens asked throughout the day when the water would be back on. This was a unique situation that had never happened in Kingfisher before so the timeline of the fix was unknown. City officials and employees continued to work diligently to get the pumps back up and running. They had three solutions they simultaneously worked on to see which one panned out first. The emergency water availability plan continued until 7:30 pm on September 27th. At that time, it was intended to reopen at 8:00 am the next morning, September 28th, but ended up not being needed. The generous volunteers had been working hard at manning the station since 11:30 am that morning. At 8:20 that night, September 27th, the City of Kingfisher announced that the Water Department had set up a temporary fix. Allen Ludwig at Tony’s Electric used a method called baking to dry out the pump motors and was able to completely dry all the moisture. They used this new and improved motor to get one pump up and working appropriately. After a long day’s work, the workers went home and came back the next morning to install the new motors and parts. By Sunday, all three pumps were back up and running. THANK YOU to all city officials, county fire departments, volunteers, and people and businesses who donated or offered assistance.