The water crisis made for a bittersweet Valentine’s week in Mancos.
The town was without drinkable water for five and a half days, and many restaurants were forced to close for several days. Some missed all their Valentine’s Day business.
“It sure did shut down our little town for a couple days,” said Melissa Blaine, a manager of Absolute Bakery.
Limited, nonpotable service water returned Feb. 11, and the boil alert was lifted Friday afternoon. This allowed residents to flush their water lines, which ended the crisis.
Much of town life ground to a halt; schools, clinics and many businesses closed.
Olio and Millwood Junction were still closed Friday because of the outage.
“Valentine’s Day is a day that helps us get through the winter,” said Rena Wilson, who helps run Olio and is also president of the Chamber of Commerce.
The restaurant had planned a special menu for couples and had to cancel all reservations, she said.
Millwood Junction management posted a sign on the front door apologizing and stated the restaurant hadn’t missed the holiday in 36 years. The sign said the business would reopen Tuesday.
Other businesses including Absolute Bakery & Cafe, Fahrenheit Coffee Roasters and Zuma Natural Food reopened by the end of the week with limited services.
The latter’s deli and espresso bar were closed throughout the outage, but the grocery side remained open, said Linda Mount, an employee.
Zuma pulls in many customers from the highway. Mount said business was hurt, but it would have been worse if the grocery store side had shut down.
“Nobody was really huffy,” she said.
Absolute Bakery & Cafe missed three days of business, and things were slow when they reopened, said Blaine, who runs the store with her father. Three days can impact a business’s budget for the month, she said.
“It threw a wrench into our day-to-day,” she said.
An owner of Fahrenheit, Matt Lauer, applauded the town’s efforts to help residents by bringing in portable potties and the water tanker shortly after the water outage started. But closing Feb. 10, 11 and part of Feb. 12 hurt his business. Even on Friday it was slow.
“We lost a lot of money this week,” he said.
At Ted’s Tacos, water flowed from a cistern all week, and it stayed open.
“I was lucky,” owner Ted Lawrence said.
But he saw far fewer customers early last week because everyone assumed it was closed. Business started to pick up days later.
The outage started on Feb. 9 after a pump at the water-treatment plant failed. A new pump was brought in from California and installed Thursday.
When limited nonpotable water started to flow Feb. 11, Town Administrator Andrea Phillips presented the good news to a full Town Hall.
She acknowledged businesses had been hurt during the water outage and said she’d been asked to prepare a letter for businesses to send to insurance companies.
She also said she would work with the Chamber of Commerce to organize a Mancos “cash mob” to encourage people from out of town to visit and shop.
mshinn@cortezjournal.com
