The pumps at the Vicksburg water treatment plant on Haining Road are back up and city water customers should be getting water pressure, city Public Works Director Garnet Van Norman said.

“They are up and running and we are bringing them back slowly,” he said. “We should be back to normal operation by early morning.”

He said city water department workers should begin flushing lines and clearing air out of the waterlines.

A boil water notice remains in effect, and Van Norman said city officials may be able to lift the boil water notice sometime this weekend, “provided nothing else happens.”

City water customers should continue boiling their drinking and cooking water vigorously for two minutes or find an alternate source of water until the boil water notice is lifted. Warren County Emergency Management Director John Elfer said Culkin Water District officials have agreed to put a faucet and bleed a water line at the fire plug in front of their headquarters on Sherman Avenue to make water available for city residents at no charge.

Earlier today,  Van Norman said the pumps, which move water from the plant to the city’s water tanks, shut down Monday night after the outage, adding the city’s water tanks were  empty.

“The (water) plant was up an running (after the outage),” Public Works Director Garnet Van Norman told Mayor George Flaggs Jr. and other city officials at a 1 p.m. emergency meeting. “We got the plant back on Entergy, and I guess about 10 o’clock, 10:30, we lost all the high service pumps inside the of the water plant itself.”

He said city officials will have to pull water samples for two consecutive days for testing by Mississippi Department of Health. Those samples must be clear before state health officials will allow the city to lift the boil water notice.

“This is something that has never happened before, but they’ve got all kinds of people here and en route.”

A number of Vicksburg schools, municipal buildings and businesses are closing early Tuesday, the result of problems created by low water pressure and a city of Vicksburg boil water notice.

Affected schools in the Vicksburg Warren School District closed at 1 p.m. Those include the Academy of Innovation, Vicksburg Junior High School, Warren Central Junior High, Bowmar Elementary, Vicksburg High School, Warrenton Elementary and Fresh Start Academy.

Porters Chapel Academy dismissed school at about noon. Vicksburg Catholic Schools dismissed classes at about 12:30 p.m.

The Warren County Courthouse also closed at noon.

The city issued a boil water notice overnight Monday, after storms damaged power lines serving the city’s water wells.

The closures are the result of low water pressure, which in addition to the boil water notice, has made it impossible to flush toilets and the like.

School officials said they would made decisions about classes on Wednesday at a later time.