By Louie Graves
News-Leader staff
The biggest production day in the history of the Nashville water department occurred Wednesday, Jan. 17, when most local water faucets were dripping as a protective hedge against the cold.
The area was in the grip of a 10-day winter blast when temperatures went as low as 4 degrees and daytime highs were only in the 20s.
Possibly because of the number of dripping faucets on the 17th, the Nashville water plant treated and distributed 5.4 million gallons of water throughout the city and via the rural water association.
Mayor Larry Dunaway told the newspaper last week that the figure was a record for the water department. “It was our biggest day ever,” he said.
There were few weather-related problems for city water treatment and distribution, he said. “We got real lucky.”
Streets haven’t been so lucky.
The mayor — who also serves as director of the public works department — said that heavy rains combined with widely fluctuating temperatures had wreaked havoc with the city’s asphalt streets.
City crews have been working steadily on the worst of the potholes but are making slow headway.
Mayor Dunaway said that the street department had used up all of its reserved patching material and that more was on order.
Some streets have a thinner layer of the hotmix asphalt than others, he explained, and the ‘thinner’ streets suffered the most ice and water damage.
He said he was looking into the possibility of re-doing some streets with oil and pea gravel because of the cost.
