ASHEVILLE, NC — Nearly eight weeks after Hurricane Helene ravaged areas of western North Carolina, drinkable water is once again flowing from the taps in Asheville.
Flooding crippled the city’s water treatment plant, causing high turbidity in the reservoir.
However, crews have made repairs and cleared the reservoir of heavy sediment, with samples taken Sunday showing the water is safe for consumption.
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At the Itto Ramen restaurant in downtown Asheville, employee Alexis Dossett filled glasses with tap water and ice from the bar.
“It’s been funny to see everybody’s reaction to bringing out a glass of cold iced water,” she told Channel 2′s Bryan Mims. “It’s almost like we forgot what that’s like. It’s like a luxury now.”
The restaurant paid to have drinkable water trucked in and stored in a 500-gallon tank.
A few doors down, at The Noodle Shop, that was an expense the small restaurant could ill afford.
So for all these weeks after the storm, it stayed closed.
But with drinkable water back on tap, the restaurant will reopen Friday.
“Me and my husband popped a bottle of champagne,” Taylor Loftin, a server at the restaurant said. She’s one of only a few employees returning. “We’ve definitely had over half of our staff move away, either back home with their families or just out of town where they were able to get more work.”
The return of drinkable water is also cause for celebration at the city’s hotels.
At the Kimpton Hotel Arras in downtown, less than half of the rooms are booked.
The hotel has also relied on tanks of drinkable water to stay in operation.
“It’s a huge deal,” Jamie Tudico, spokeswoman for McKibbon Hospitality said. “It was a big celebration when we all found out that we’re getting (water) on Monday. I mean, everybody was just texting each other and being so excited. It’s gonna make operations so much easier.”
She hopes with drinkable water available from the faucet, people will be encouraged to visit Asheville and fill the hotels.
“We can operate our dishwashers and we can produce ice again,” she said. “So things we have taken for granted in the past, we’re so thrilled to be able to offer again.”
The foot traffic is slowly returning to downtown Asheville, but two miles south in Biltmore Village, businesses are months away from reopening.
The high-end shopping and dining district was devastated by the raging Swannanoa River.
“We were flooded up through the entire first floor of the building,” Matthew Lehman, general manager of the Grand Bohemian Hotel said. “So the recovery work is substantial, but we’re working quickly and hope to be open in the spring.”
He expects to be checking guests in again by April or May.
“We have all sorts of great tradesmen here working on electrical and plumbing systems, rewiring and fixing, and getting ready to make us open better than ever,” he said.
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