Martin County residents without water for six weeks

INEZ, Ky. (WSAZ) - Families who live on state Route 645 have been without water for six weeks.

Frustration has been mounting as people, who have paid full price for their bills, are dealing with lengthy outages and intermittent service.

For Tyler O’Connor, his family has only been met with a small drip from one faucet in their home.

“I keep hoping it will come out, but it never will,” said O’Connor, as he turns on his bathroom faucet waiting for water to flow.

Throughout the six weeks, O’Connor has seen nine days with intermittent service -- but even then, it doesn’t last long.

The O’Connor family packs up their three children, all under the age of 3, daily to access running water.

“We come every day and even multiple times a day to bathe the kids, to shower ourselves, and to brush our teeth,” O’Connor said.

Jimmy Kerr, Martin County Water District Chairman, says they’ve hired two contractors to fix the pump, but each time it has failed.

Kerr said crews are actively working to create a permanent solution for the troublesome pump.

“It’s difficult to find solutions within our budget to be able to make those repairs quickly. Now, what has occurred here is unacceptable. They should never have had those issues for as long as they had,” Kerr said.

“This won’t be the last issue we need to fix like, but I do ask patience from our customers as we work to resolve them,” he said.

Kerr said crews are working on a temporary solution to provide water to those customers during the weekend. He expects the water to be restored by the end of next week.