Tenn. Town Has Run Out of Water
Pastor Dale Morgan
Nov 1, 4:20 PM EDT
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Tenn. Town Has Run Out of Water*
By GREG BLUESTEIN
Associated Press Writer
ORME, Tenn. (AP) -- As twilight falls over this Tennessee town, Mayor
Tony Reames drives up a dusty dirt road to the community's towering
water tank and begins his nightly ritual in front of a rusty metal valve.
With a twist of the wrist, he releases the tank's meager water supply,
and suddenly this sleepy town is alive with activity. Washing machines
whir, kitchen sinks fill and showers run.
About three hours later, Reames will return and reverse the process,
cutting off water to the town's 145 residents.
The severe drought tightening like a vise across the Southeast has
threatened the water supply of cities large and small, sending
politicians scrambling for solutions. But Orme, about 40 miles west of
Chattanooga and 150 miles northwest of Atlanta, is a town where the
worst-case scenario has already come to pass: The water has run out.
The mighty waterfall that fed the mountain hamlet has been reduced to a
trickle, and now the creek running through the center of town is dry.
Three days a week, the volunteer fire chief hops in a 1961 fire truck at
5:30 a.m. - before the school bus blocks the narrow road - and drives a
few miles to an Alabama fire hydrant. He meets with another truck from
nearby New Hope, Ala. The two drivers make about a dozen runs back and
forth, hauling about 20,000 gallons of water from the hydrant to Orme's
tank.
"I'm not God. I can't make it rain. But I'll get you the water I can get
you," Reames tells residents.
Between 6 and 9 every evening, the town scurries. Residents rush home
from their jobs at the carpet factories outside town to turn on washing
machines. Mothers start cooking supper. Fathers fill up water jugs. Kids
line up to take showers.
"You never get used to it," says Cheryl Evans, a 55-year-old who has
lived in town all her life. "When you're used to having water and you
ain't got it, it's strange. I can't tell you how many times I've turned
on the faucet before remembering the water's been cut."
"You have to be in a rush," she says. "At 6 p.m., I start my supper,
turn on my washer, fill all my water jugs, take my shower."
During its peak in the 1930s, Orme (rhymes with "storm") boasted a
population of thousands, a jail, three schools and a hotel. But those
boom times are long gone.
After the coal miners went on strike in the 1940s, the company shut down
the mine and the town has never been the same. Not a single business is
left in Orme. The only reminder of the town's glory days is an aging
wooden rail depot that sits three feet above the eerily quiet streets.
Although changes are coming - cable TV arrived just a few years ago -
cell phones still don't work there. The main road into town is barely
wide enough for two cars to pass one another. Dogs wander the streets,
farm animals can be heard all around town, and kids gather outside the
one-room City Hall to ride their bikes.
"It's like walking back in time. It's Never-Never Land here," says Ernie
Dawson, a 47-year-old gospel singer who grew up in Orme.
Water restrictions in Orme are nothing new. But residents say it's never
been this bad.
Even last summer, as the water supply dwindled, city leaders cut off
water only at night. But in August, Reames took the most extreme step
yet and restricted use to three hours a day.
Elected in December, he has now spent $8,000 of the city's $13,000
annual budget to deal with the crisis. Most of the money went toward
trucking water from Alabama.
He has tried to fill the gaps with modest fundraisers, but it hasn't
been easy. A Halloween carnival last week cleared about $375 and a dog
show two weeks ago made $300.
The town has received a $377,590 emergency grant from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture that Reames hopes will be Orme's salvation. A
utility crew is laying a 2 1/2-mile pipe to connect Orme to the
Bridgeport, Ala., water supply. The work could be finished by Thanksgiving.
"It's not a short-term solution," Reames says. "It is THE solution."
He says the crisis in Orme could serve as a warning to other communities
to conserve water before it's too late.
"I feel for the folks in Atlanta," he says, his gravelly voice barely
rising above the sound of rushing water from the town's tank. "We can
survive. We're 145 people. You've got 4.5 million people down there.
What are they going to do? It's a scary thought."