Thousands of Beaufort County water customers were without water on the south side of the Pamlico River Sunday.

The county has issued a boil-water advisory to all south-side customers who do not buy their water from the Town of Chocowinity. This includes all nonmunicipal water users outside of Chocowinity from Cox’s Crossroads past Aurora all the way to the county line.

The Town of Chocowinity has offered the county a staging area where people can fill up containers with water. This staging area will be located at the ballpark off N.C. Highway 33 in Chocowinity.

The county recommends that people bring to the staging area enough containers for a two-day supply of water for each member of the household.

For more information, call the county’s Emergency Operations Center at 252-946-2046.

“All county water customers on the south of the side of the river do not currently have water service at this time,” said Jim Chrisman, interim county manager.

Chrisman estimated 3,100 water customers had no water service on the south side.

“The issue is we’ve had reports of bridge washouts down there on secondary roads,” he said. “We suspect it’s possible that when those washed out our water lines may have washed out as well. The (county) water department is reporting possible, numerous breaks at various locations. That makes it difficult to sustain water pressure and proper flow.”

Chrisman said his immediate concern was getting to people on the south side, some of whom were hemmed in by tree-blocked secondary roads.

“We’re working on that issue right now,” he said.

Chrisman has requisitioned two FEMA generators to run the county’s southside water-treatment plan, and the interim manager expects those generators to be in place by early afternoon.

“In the meantime the Town of Chocowinity has graciously agreed to tie into our system and feed us water so that we can start getting some capacity back into our tanks,” he said. “When we do restore water in certain areas we’ll have that backfill in place.”