Mom raises concerns about ‘brown’ water in son’s SC middle school
A mother is raising concerns about problems with the water at her son’s middle school.
Keanna Ravenell wrote Tuesday in the Facebook group Citizens of the Town of Irmo and Surrounding Friends that Dutch Fork Middle School was without water, and that whatever water was available was “brown.”
“If you have children that go to DFMS please check on them,” she wrote.
Ravenell later told The State she was called by her eighth-grade son from school Tuesday complaining about something in his eye.
“I told him to get a water bottle to flush it out,” she said. “And he said, ‘no, we don’t have any water bottles and we don’t have any water.’”
Ravenell said she spoke to the school nurse and called the front desk to try to find out why the school was without water.
“I know the kids have got to eat or use the bathroom,” she said. “It was 12 o’clock by then.”
She said she was told at the school that the situation was because of a busted water main in the neighborhood, and was assured the water would be restored soon. Columbia Water confirmed they responded to a water main break Tuesday along Staffwood Drive in the development across Old Tamah Road from Dutch Fork, but the department’s utility operations director, Frank Eskridge, said that line doesn’t serve the school.
Ravenell said she was left unsure how safe that water would be to drink.
The Lexington-Richland 5 school district said late Tuesday that routine maintenance had been performed on the school’s water heater over the holiday weekend, and that the water lines were flushed early Tuesday morning. The school didn’t receive any reports of brownish water after about 7:30 a.m., a school spokesperson said. Bottled water was also being made available to students and staff as a precaution.
Ravenell said she had not heard any complaints yet as of Wednesday afternoon. But she recalled being told the school didn’t have water when she attended a chorus performance before the winter break. Eskridge confirmed that was the result of the water department inadvertently cutting off water to the school as the department completed unrelated repairs.
“This hadn’t been an ongoing issue,” she said. “Why weren’t we notified that y’all didn’t have any water?”
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