JONESBOROUGH, Tenn. (WJHL) — The Jonesborough Water Department is prepared to repair leaks in case any occur during more upcoming frigid temperatures. Mayor Chuck Vest said he does not anticipate major water outages like the one that occurred two years ago following an arctic blast in the region.

In December of 2022, rolling blackouts affected Jonesborough’s water pump station.

“We generally are in touch with BrightRidge, and I don’t foresee just with these three or four days of cold weather, I think TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) can handle that without doing rolling blackouts,” Vest said.

TVA has made major upgrades that will allow its equipment to withstand extended single-digit temperatures, so rolling blackouts shouldn’t have to happen.

“TVA certainly learned a lot from Winter Storm Elliot, which was back in December of 2022 when we had some equipment that just was not able to handle the combination of wind and single-digit temperatures at that time for an extended period of time,” Scott Brooks, TVA Spokesperson said. “So since then, we’ve invested more than $400 million in the overall system to harden, to make it weather-ready, to install things like permanent structures over pieces of equipment that were vulnerable to the weather.”

When the cold snap happened in 2022, Jonesborough’s main water tank on Persimmon Ridge Road went down to around 6 feet of water. It’s usually between 40 to 50 feet. Water had to slowly build back up to restore service.

Vest said a new water plant will be completed in two years that will have a larger capacity.

“Now we’re maxed out at about 3 million gallons,” Vest said. “In the future, our new plants are going to be able to pump 8 million gallons. And all municipalities have water leaks in their system, but most of the larger ones are able to pump more water to kind of keep up with the leaks. And that’s where we’re at now. We need the new, larger plant to pump more water. But we’re also going to have a dedicated transmission line from our plant to our water tanks, which is something we don’t have today that’s going to make our tanks much more stable in the future, but unfortunately, a couple of years away. So in the meantime, we just got to work as hard as we can to prevent the leaks.”

Vests asked Jonesborough residents to help prevent burst pipes.

“Come Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at night only, a small drip of water smaller than a pencil size in probably one sink, and then only in one location in the house is all you need to do. If people turn on too many faucets and they run a lot of water at night, that can drain our tanks, and that’s when our tanks need to refill. So a small drip in one faucet generally the furthest away from the entry point of the water in the house would be the best thing they can do.”

The Jonesborough Water Department is still prepared to repair potential leaks when the upcoming frigid temperatures set in.

If Jonesborough water customers get a leak in their homes, they can call their water department at 423-753-1005.

“Our water department is planning on working two 12-hour shifts come Monday, just to make sure they’re ready to respond for leaks because we expect to get them,” Vest said. “When you have freezing temperatures, we have ground that freezes, water that freezes and rocks that shift and those things are not good for water lines.”