Portales water line break, shortage leads to closure of offices, school
PORTALES, NM — The Eastern New Mexico University-Portales campus closed Thursday, as well as city and Roosevelt County offices while the city was dealing with a water shortage due to a main water line break Wednesday night.
According to the city of Portales Facebook page, the city was experiencing a break in a 24” inch main water line in the vicinity of Bryan Street that affected all of town. "All City Offices will be closed November 3, 2022 due to the water shutdown," the city said in a Facebook post. "City offices will be back to normal hours of operation once the water is restored. You can use our website at portalesnm.gov for some of those services that you may need. Thank you for your patience."
"The ENMU-Portales campus is closed, and classes are canceled for Thursday, November 3, 2022. The City of Portales is experiencing what is expected to be an extended water outage that will impact the ENMU-Portales campus," the university said in an email update, noting president interviews scheduled for the day would take place virtually, as well as various forums.
Crews were working diligently to to mitigate the situation and get the water back on to the town. A localized shutdown was attempted for two hours after the break took place at around 11 p.m. Wednesday, but then city workers made the decision to do a shutdown at the main tanks.
As of Thursday afternoon, crews were waiting for the water to stop flowing from the pipe and had pumps in place to get to work once the water was drawn off. City representatives also asked people to avoid the area and said updates would be posted on their Facebook page as progress was made. They also had emergency management working on getting non-potable water trailers in for residents.
Nonpotable water was made available at the Portales Fire Department and was limited to five gallons per household, with residents required to bring their own containers. For questions, they were asked to call City Hall at 575-356-6662.
This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: City of Portales, NM experiencing water line break, shortage
