South Asheville businesses, breweries, Mission Health, Givens talk water outage impacts

ASHEVILLE - Though Asheville announced Jan. 4 that its boil water advisory is lifted for all city water customers, the effect of more than a week of water outages that affected nearly 40,000 people still lingers, especially for South Asheville businesses, many of which were hit hard, according to local service workers.

Wicked Weed Brewing spokesperson Rachel Dudasik said though the brewery's downtown locations were able to stay open during the week between Christmas Eve and New Year's Day, a notoriously busy week in the industry, its South Asheville headquarters, called Funk House, which also serves as its sour brewing facility, was without water last week and its doors were closed.

Unable to brew, 10 days later, they still have not resumed production of sour beers and wine at the Funk House.

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“We have water but it’s so highly chlorinated right now, coming back from the aftermath, that we are still not brewing yet," Dudasik said. “This facility in South Asheville is where we felt it the most."

Wicked Weed West in Candler, a "clean" beer production facility and taproom, is a different style of brewing, and though beer-making wasn't impacted, the boil water advisory was felt by employees.

"Business and a little bit more public facing-wise, we tried to be a community outlet for those needing water the last week, so our Brew Pub and Funkatorium location downtown we opened up for folks to come get water, (with) no limit to how much clean water they could come get," she said.

This was a service offered by a number of local breweries and businesses, like Dsslvr on North Lexington Avenue downtown.

“It was a super easy move for us to say, hey, you guys can come in, get as much as you need. It’s safe and it’s free," said Dsslvr General Manager Erick Gonzalez. Dsslvr did not experience outages, and though they were under a boiling advisory, as a brewery, with an intense filtration system, they didn't have to stop production or service.

“We were totally fine, and recognizing that we were fine and had some of the best water in town at the moment, we wanted to make sure we could get that out."

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Gonzalez estimated they saw about two dozen people stop by to fill up bottles and containers in the taproom but weren't overrun. He noted downtown wasn't hit as hard as other areas of the city and said much of the impact was on businesses in South Asheville, several of which were shut down for days at a time.

Water troubles started when basins in the Mills River Intake "froze over" and the plant stopped producing water Christmas Eve, city Water Resources Director David Melton has said. In addition, the city has pointed to cold temperatures over several back-to-back days that led to leaks, and usage that they characterized as unusually high.

While there were impacts across the entire distribution system, according to a Dec. 27 statement by city spokesperson Christy Edwards, the greatest impact was in the southern area of the county. A Jan. 2 release said that service was restored to the entire southern service area the night before.

Though the boil water advisory blanketed the region, outages and low water pressure were irregular ― with businesses and homes facing different levels of impact, even just a few hundred feet apart.

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Jesse Douglas, a server at Standard Pizza in South Asheville, said though countless area restaurants were "hit pretty hard," many facing closures, Standard had water the entire duration of the outages.

“We were having record sales, we were slammed," he said of the week after Christmas. "It was probably the busiest, easily the busiest, time in Standard history. Everybody was coming here.”

Douglas said they would get calls asking if they had water. When people found they did, they would hang up and show up a few minutes later at Standard's door.

For many restaurants and breweries, losing that week of business hits "twice as hard," said Dudasik. What she called "one of the biggest money makers of the year," it's a week that helps make up for the slow season to come in the later winter months.

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“We definitely are aware and feel for a lot of those South Asheville businesses that missed out on that busy week,” she said.

Sierra Nevada Brewing in Fletcher began experiencing issues Dec. 24, according to spokesperson Robin Gregory. Though they did not lose water entirely, she said they experienced very low pressure and were then under the boil water advisory.

Gregory said pressure was restored gradually over the week and the boil water advisory was lifted on Jan. 1.

"The Taproom and public areas were closed immediately but we are thrilled that all public areas are now back open," Gregory said. "Due to the Boil Water Advisory and low pressure, we did cease some brewing operations as well, but those are now back up and running."

Though "impactful," Gregory said they "were able to reach creative solutions to mitigate the impact as much as possible."

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How was Mission Health impacted?

The outage's effects inconvenienced residents, hurt local businesses and required a health care provider to get creative.

Mission Health spokesperson Nancy Lindell confirmed Jan. 3 that Mission's CarePartners facility "did have an outage that began on Dec. 27," where the inpatient rehabilitation hospital and inpatient hospice center are located.

"HCA Healthcare procured water tankers from a private vendor and used those through Sunday evening when water was restored," Lindell wrote in an email. "Patient care was not affected."

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"Water was also out at CarePartners PACE, so the center was closed," but PACE vans distributed water to participants' homes, Lindell said.

"Mission Hospital in Asheville did not experience a water loss during the extended outage that occurred in our area," she said.

Workers with Davis Water Service were in lawn chairs Dec. 29, chatting casually amid a part of town that was increasingly furious. They were watching over multiple water trucks that were there to supply the CarePartners facility, they told a reporter.

Givens Communities responds to crisis

When Givens Estates' sprawling 215-acre campus in South Asheville lost water, associate director David Smith said they had a plan.

The 700-resident retirement community on Sweeten Creek Road was out of water for about 36 hours beginning Dec. 29, according to Smith.

Despite the outage, Smith said they saw "fairly minimal impacts," and were well prepared to handle the situation. With a water tank on campus, they used that supply for several hours until it was depleted, he said. With an additional emergency supply of bottled water, Givens also reached out to its vendors and was delivered 800 gallons from Culligan Water.

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Smith said Givens staff set up stations where residents could get non-potable water, and utilized the on-campus pond for flushing toilets and other needs.

Despite having no water coming out of the taps, Smith said residents handled the crisis "amazingly well." As of Jan. 4, Smith said they are experiencing no other impacts, and its private water tank has been refilled.

“I will say that I was extremely impressed with the thank you’s that I got from residents, but also how our team came together," Smith said. "We had different team members from across the board in multiple departments pitching in and doing things that would not be in their normal job. Everybody was volunteering to help out and make it better for everyone.”

Givens Communities spokesperson Geoffrey Cantrell said the nearby Givens Gerber Park campus, also in South Asheville, was similarly impacted and had the same response. "Preparation was a key element," he said.

Public Safety Reporter Ryan Oehrli contributed to this report.

Sarah Honosky is the city government reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. News Tips? Email shonosky@citizentimes.com or message on Twitter at @slhonosky.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: South Asheville breweries, restaurants, hospitals water outage impacts