IVEY, Ga. — UPDATE: 12:15 a.m., May 3:
Bonnie Sturgeon, City Clerk for the City of Ivey, said via email Saturday night that the city got the water sample results back and are lifting the boil water advisory.
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A dam in Wilkinson County breached Friday morning causing water to pour out of Lake Tchukolako.
According to EMA Director Emma Bacon, the break happened around 6 a.m.
She says the Holiday Hills lakefront community owns the lake and the dam, and that no one was hurt and no homes were damaged.
She added that there is a Norfolk Southern railroad track downstream that was unaffected by the dam breaking.
City residents did not have water for almost 12 hours on Friday.
Just before 6 p.m., Ivey City Clerk Bonnie Sturgeon said water had been restored to homes, but should be boiled until further notice.
Jerry Sanders Jr. woke up to early Friday morning to the sound of rushing water. He lives on Lakeshore drive, facing Lake Tchukolako.
"You could just hear water rushing like you ain't never heard it before," says Sanders. "They had some holes down there in the dam and they were pretty big. They'd been trying to fill them in and work on it and then it just went away."
Wilkinson County EMA, the Wikinson County Sheriff’s Office, GEMA and the EPD were at the scene Friday fixing the breach and city water problem.
Bacon says it was brought to her attention that the dam needed repairs in February.
Mayor Brenda Broach says the city, county and Holiday Hills home association have all been working together for the last few months on those repairs.
She called the breach “bad luck” after a lot of recent rain.
Some Ivey residents stepped outside to survey the swampy damage Friday afternoon. Others, like Jacob Smith, went out on the lake floor searching for treasures.
"Me and my brother are looking for like trash and stuff to get out. We found a boat motor," says Smith. "Now we're getting all the fish out."
Mayor Broach says the situation is under control, but she’s sad that people lost their lake.
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