Portales asking residents conserve water

Portales city officials are asking the community conserve water following a power outage during Tuesday night's storm.

The outage has shut down access to one of the city's primary well fields causing city water levels to drop more than 2 feet -- from 28.0 to 25.6 -- overnight.

Each foot equals 200,000 gallons of water, according to a news release from interim City Manager T.J. Cathey.

City staff are utilizing an "emergency contingency plan" in drawing water from the Lime Street tank and Sandhill well field until power is restored to the downed Black Water well field.

"City Staff and Elected Officials are working with the electrical providers to determine a timeline for the projected outage. Staff are also working to obtain generators to power individual wells to get them back online for the time being," Cathey wrote in the news release.

At a 4 p.m. news conference, city officials said 25 of the city's 43 wells were still without power due to the storm. Active wells were on pace to produce about 1.53 million gallons of water per day; prior to the power outage, Cathey said city wells were producing about 3 million gallons per day.

Cathey said Xcel Energy officials predicted the power would be restored by 8 p.m. Wednesday. Until then, he asked residents conserve water as much as possible.

"With the projected timeline" of power restoration, Cathey said he doesn't expect any serious long-term problems.

Much of the region was hit by a hail storm with high winds and heavy rains on Tuesday night. Power outages were also reported across the region, though most power was restored Wednesday morning.