JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A severe cold snap earlier this week sent JEA into overdrive as they scrambled to handle a month\u2019s worth of service calls in just 72 hours. <\/p>\n
The start of the week saw the utility field more than 3,000 calls related to water cutoffs, service leaks, and poor pressure. <\/p>\n
\u201c3,700 tickets for 35 people is difficult,\u201d Kyle Schoettler, Director of Water\/Wastewater Maintenance System Operations, said. <\/p>\n
To manage the surge, the utility halted normal construction projects, redirecting all available personnel to emergency customer assistance. <\/p>\n
According to Schoettler, approximately 1,800 of the reported issues were \u201cno water\u201d calls caused by frozen private plumbing rather than utility-side failures. <\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cAt some point throughout the event, the customer\u2019s pipes froze because it either was not protected, or they did not leave any type of flow on the service,\u201d Schoettler explained. He noted that while crews are still responding to small service leaks buried shallowly underground, there were no large main breaks impacting the broader system. <\/p>\n The volume of requests beat out previous records. During the major freeze on Christmas Eve in 2022, JEA received only 300 calls in the same timeframe. <\/p>\n Despite preparing by increasing staff beyond the typical seven weekend response crews, the sheer scale of this event was unexpected. <\/p>\n \u201cThe sheer volume of calls that we received in here during this event will affect the way that we staff in the future,\u201d Schoettler said, adding that JEA aims to ensure they are fully prepped from a \u201cdelivery collection\u201d standpoint. <\/p>\n Moving forward, JEA will continue to emphasize customer preparation, including covering exposed pipes and installing insulation. Leaving faucets on a slow drip during sub-freezing temperatures to prevent freezing. As well as improving communication protocols with partner agencies like the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office and Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department. <\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A severe cold snap earlier this week sent JEA into overdrive as they scrambled to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49246,71159,116,118,117,501,6489,12814,1872,634],"class_list":{"0":"post-147010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-christmas_eve","9":"tag-ja","10":"tag-jacksonville","11":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","12":"tag-jacksonville-news","13":"tag-jea","14":"tag-jessica_salinas","15":"tag-jfrd","16":"tag-jso","17":"tag-local"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}