Start of school delayed, businesses closed after City of Cushing declares water emergency

People and businesses in the City of Cushing will be without a reliable source of water for the time being after the city declared a water emergency Monday, with no estimated time of restoration.

CUSHING, Okla. (KFOR) — People and businesses in the City of Cushing will be without a reliable source of water for the time being after the city declared a water emergency Monday, with no estimated time of restoration.

The City of Cushing’s board of commissioners voted to approve a disaster declaration on Monday after a “failure” at the city’s water treatment plant made the plant unable to produce potable water, according to the declaration.

According a City of Cushing Facebook post, that "failure" happened after a basement flooded at the city's water treatment plant, rendering certain treatment equipment unusable.

Cushing's Interim City Manager Derek Griffith declined an interview request from News 4 on Monday, but in a Facebook post he wrote the city has no estimated time for when water service may be restored.

"The timeline to have the plant back operational is still unknown due to repair processes of equipment but we are hopeful that within the week the issue will be resolved," Griffith wrote. "Please know that city staff is working as diligently and as fast as possible to restore operations. Again, we appreciate the effort of the entire community to limit consumption and would ask that you continue for the duration of this event. It is a real possibility that our reserve capacity won’t last until repairs are completed if continued conservation is not practiced."

In a separate Facebook post, the city advised residents to immediately begin rationing water, writing:

“Any water usage should be limited to essential use only.”

“Avoid doing laundry and other household uses of water.”

“Outside watering is strictly prohibited.”

As a result, Cushing Public Schools delayed the start of its school year by one week, and numerous businesses all over down voluntarily shut down.

“We kind of had to switch gears,” Cushing Public Schools superintendent Melissa Amon told News 4.

Amon made the decision to postpone the first day of school from this Thursday until next Thursday, August 15.

“We're going to have lots of kids in the building who are going to need to just drink the water and so we wanted to make sure that we had that at that aspect. Then also just all the restroom facilities, think about all of our athletic facilities,” Amon said. “We just wanted to be a good partner and try to do all that we can to fix the problem and not make the problem worse.”

If still you needed a sign to know something was not quite right in Cushing on Monday, you could look no further than the local Sonic, which was absolutely deserted on a near 100-degree Oklahoma afternoon.

“Unfortunately, we are gonna suffer from this,” a Sonic employee told News 4 as she posted a ‘temporarily closed’ sign on the restaurant’s door. “There’s just no way for us to operate our machines.”

Despite the city’s Facebook page indicating the city was only under a voluntary boil order, the Sonic employee told News 4 health department staff informed her otherwise.

“The health department just came through and was telling everybody it’s finally a mandatory boil order,” the employee said.

News 4 reached out to the Oklahoma State Department of Health for clarification, but have not heard back.

With no end in sight, the Sonic’s local ownership and employees are coming to grips with the fact that their income stream is apparently only as stable at the city’s water system.

“Our owners are very disappointed and very upset because this is gonna affect our employees and everything,” the employee said.