| Day | Date | Year | Closings | Amount | Road Amount | Type | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Friday | March 16 | 2012 | ED | xxx | xxx | xxx | NON-WEATHER RELATED: "A boil water advisory was issued Friday in the city of Kingston because of a significant drop in water pressure. The advisory, in effect until further notice but likely to be lifted Saturday afternoon, is only for drinking water, not for water that’s used to bathe, shower or do laundry, according to city Water Superintendent Judith Hansen." Schools dismissed early, after school events/sport cancelled, high school musical rescheduled. High School dismissed at 1:30PM |
http://www.kingstoncityschools.org/
Due to water main break all schools in the District will be closing early. Kingston High School, Miller and Bailey Middle Schools will be dismissed at 1:30 followed by the Elementary Schools at 2:15. Please do not drink the water in Kingston for 24 hours.
Click here for information on new showtimes for Sweeney Todd.
All after school and evening activities are canceled.
The "Sports Saturday" scheduled for Saturday, March 17, 2012 is postponed, date TBA.
'Boil water' advisory issued in Kingston; school district widely impacted (5:50 p.m. update)
Published: Friday, March 16, 2012
By Freeman staff
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KINGSTON, N.Y. — A “boil water” advisory was issued Friday in the city of Kingston because of a significant drop in water pressure.
The advisory, in effect until further notice but likely to be lifted Saturday afternoon, is only for drinking water, not for water that’s used to bathe, shower or do laundry, according to city Water Superintendent Judith Hansen.
Customers in the town of Ulster who get city of Kingston water are not affected, town Supervisor James Quigley III said Friday afternoon. He said those customers were switched to the town’s backup water supply and would continue to get that water until the Kingston advisory was lifted.
As a result of the water problem, all schools in the Kingston district dismissed early on Friday, sports practices were canceled, and the evening’s performance at Kingston High School of the musical “Sweeney Todd” was postponed until Sunday evening. (The “Sweeney Todd” performances scheduled for Saturday night and Sunday afternoon were still on as of late Friday.)
The district’s “Sports Saturday” event scheduled for Saturday also was canceled.
The city Water Department said three valves that allow water to enter the distribution system closed without warning at 10:45 a.m. Friday, causing the drop in pressure.
Water Department employees were able to manually reopen the valves, and pressure was restored at 11:15 a.m., but there were concerns that some low pressure and turbidity would persist, the department said.
Hansen said a new computer system was installed in December and that a malfunction in the system caused the intake valves to close.
“No one was more surprised than we were,” she said.
When the valves closed, Hansen said, the water pressured quickly dropped from 50 pounds to under 10 pounds.
“When the pressure drops that fast … (water) can become contaminated,” she said.
Hansen said computer experts will be called in to determine what went wrong.
The “boil water” advisory was issued as a precaution at the request of the Ulster County Health Department.
Hansen said the department was collecting and testing water samples throughout the city and that she hoped results would allow the boil advisory to be lifted by 4 p.m. Saturday.
City water customers with questions or problems should call the Water Department at (845) 331-0205.
People who had tickets for Friday evening’s performance of “Sweeney Todd” at the high school may trade them in for one of the other performances on a first-come, first-served basis, the school district said, and those people will be given preferential status for the Sunday evening performance.
