Computer system shuts down city water

A computer system shut down the water system supplying Coulee Dam residents with drinking water sometime last weekend, but nobody knew it until pressures dropped low enough Monday morning.

City Superintendent Mike Steffens said a computer programmer worked on restoring the system Monday morning, but the city crew still had to manually operate different valves across the system to equalize pressure and restore functionality.

At Steffens' urging, the city purchased a new computer system to replace the aging one at the city's water plant on the east side of town. But the changeover to the new system is still being worked out, Steffens said.

Nevertheless, the program still should have alerted Steffens when it was shutting down the water plant.

"We should have been alerted to any fluctuation that drastic," Steffens said Monday afternoon at the plant office, watching icons on the computer monitor report levels and pressures in various parts of the system.

Steffens said no part of the system was completely without water, but houses in the higher elevations in east Coulee Dam lost enough pressure that they lost water flow anyway.

He said from Central Drive downhill still had water, but he could see signs of a small pressure loss there too. "It was close, close to not being a good deal."

After the programmer got the system started up again, working remotely, Steffens and crew had to go around town opening and closing valves and check valves.

By mid-afternoon, service was restored.

The west side of town, operating off a secondary reservoir, never lost pressure, Steffens said.