WACO, Texas — After heavy rainfall, several neighborhoods in Waco saw overflowing man holes.
The City of Waco says an Oncor power failure led to an outage at the wastewater treatment plant, which led to millions of gallons to overflow into the Brazos.
- In the two hours, the wastewater treatment plant was dark — the city says more than 3.2 million gallons of "partially treated wastewater" flowed into the Brazos.
- Heavy rains also caused more than 100,000 gallons to overflow through several manholes in local neighborhoods.
- There's not a way to stop the water, but the city will sanitize the area and try to get the water back into the sewer.
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Almost three and a half million gallons of wastewater overflowed onto some streets in Waco, and into local water sources.
"We had an overflow at our central wastewater treatment plant, which is on Treatment Plant Road, and the outfall goes into the Brazos River," Jessica Emmett Sellers said.
The City of Waco says an Oncor power failure led to an outage at the wastewater treatment plant.
In the two hours the plant was dark — the city says more than 3.2 million gallons of "partially treated wastewater" flowed into the Brazos.
"With the dilution from the rain, and then the fact that the river was flowing because rain was falling there as well — we're not really concerned about a health thing," Emmett Sellers said.
Heavy rains also caused more than 100,000 gallons to overflow through several manholes in local neighborhoods.
25 News' Dominique Leh checked out the situation, and says there was an odor in some places, and also sanitary debris, so she asked City of Waco's Jessica Emmett Sellers about it.
"Don't go towards that water, because it is water that we are sending to the treatment plant to be treated — so if it's coming back the other way you want to avoid that," she said.
There's not a way to stop the water, but the city will sanitize the area and try to get the water back into the sewer.
Emmet Sellers says the amount of water overflowing isn't unusual for the amount of rain Waco has received.
"When we have a lot of rain that falls very quickly like we did the other day — this is something that we expect, we're prepared for, and we have guys ready to handle those situations," Emmett Sellers said.
