WAKEFIELD—For the past several days, Wakefield residents have been without drinking water from their taps. But their thirst was quenched on late Thursday afternoon thanks to help from a delegate and a grocery store chain.

“About a week ago, their water treatment plant broke down,” said Del. Rick Morris (R-64) about the town’s situation. He added that a part was ordered for the chlorination process, which helps to sanitize the water, but that it apparently failed and needed to be reordered.

“So the mayor’s been desperate and having difficulty getting water. I was able to get Food Lion to donate 1,000 cases of water,” said Morris, who added that residents were still able to use their own water for sanitation.

The cases were to be delivered at 4:45 p.m. and distributed from the town firehouse.

Wakefield Mayor C. Winston Britt Sr. confirmed the situation.

“We got a bad reading on the line in our system. We don’t really know why so far,” Britt said. “We’re chlorinating [the water] now. One line is still bad, but not as bad as the original, but the other one came back clear. We’ll do it again and, hopefully, everything will come back all right. We hope to know by Friday.”

He added that’s when town will get test results on the water from Richmond.

This incident was a first according to Britt, who’s been serving for 18 years.

“Everybody’s concerned. After Friday, we’ll see how much farther we have to go,” he said. “We’re still in the limbo stage.”