Water restored in Victor, Colorado, after days-long outage, boil order remains in place

Water service has now been restored to the historic mountain city of Victor, Colorado, after nearly a week of outages tied to catastrophic failures in the city's aging water system.

City officials confirmed Tuesday afternoon that water had been successfully recharged into Victor's system after emergency repairs and line flushing efforts. However, residents are still under a boil water order while crews continue testing and monitoring for additional failures.

For residents and businesses, the return of running water marks the end of a brutal stretch that began Thursday when crews attempting to replace a water main removed dirt underneath the line, which was the only thing supporting the line. That started a long line of attempts to fix it, then adapt to new issues each attempted fix brought. 

"During that time, we found another main failure," said City Administrator Bobby Tech. "Unfortunately, as we were going through this, we realized there are additional failures and those failures begin to compound."

According to the city, Victor lost an estimated 500,000 to 600,000 gallons of water during the crisis, roughly 15 times the city's normal daily usage of 30,000 to 40,000 gallons. The outage impacted around 420 water taps serving roughly 300-350 homes.

Tech explained Victor's water infrastructure dates back decades, and in some places, more than a century.

"Victor was a boomtown in the 1890s and early 1900s," Tech said. "So we're still finding sometimes clay and wooden pipes."

The crisis escalated Sunday when the city declared a local emergency and brought in additional crews and resources from across Colorado. Officials say that when pressure was restored to the system, more weak points in the old infrastructure began to fail.

"When you lose pressure in a system and then you repressurize, that system becomes weaker," Tech explained.

Businesses across Victor say the outage hit them hard during one of the busiest parts of the week. At the 1899 Mining Claim and Saloon, owner Pam Michalkm estimated losing more than $10,000 in expected revenue after events had to be canceled. She's not only suffering on a business level, but on a personal level too, going days without access to running water. 

"You know, taking sponge baths really sucks," Michalkm said.

Meanwhile, local business owner Adam Zimmerly said the outage threatened the survival of his small businesses, already struggling in the former mining town.

"We lost a weekend. That's 25% of our income," Zimmerly said.

Zimmerly said hotels, restaurants and shops were left unable to properly operate without hot water or functioning restrooms.

"When guests come, they're gonna want a shower," he said. "It's really tough for us to maintain food safety standards without properly running water."

Now that the water is finally flowing again, many residents remain concerned about the reliability of the aging system moving forward.

"We're in a 125-year-old mountain town," Zimmerly said. "You just don't know what problems you're going to find."

The city says crews remain on standby in case additional leaks emerge as pressure fully returns to the system. Officials are continuing to flush lines and test water quality before lifting the boil advisory.

Victor officials have also stressed that this type of infrastructure crisis is not unique to one small Colorado city.

"There are many communities in the state of Colorado who are just one bad day away from not having water," Tech said.

Updates from the city can be found through the City of Victor Facebook page and the City of Victor official website.

Finally, a plea from the people just getting back to their lives in Victor:

"We are going to be open this weekend no matter what," Zimmerly said before the water came back on. "So if people are seeing this, if they want to support us, come to Victor, Colorado, and spend some money."

"Please, we are hurting. We're going to need as much business as we can handle after losing out on this last weekend," he added.

Colorado's newest troll statue, "Rita the Rock Planter," is a very short, beautiful hike away from Victor for photo ops, for those looking for an extra excuse to visit Victor this weekend.