St. Helena residents still dealing with brown tap water after bus hits fire hydrant

ST. HELENA, Calif. (KGO) -- St. Helena is trying to clear up its water with dozens of taps coming out brown for days.

"This one was pink! This one is really bad," said Ryan Crow-Enos.

Ryan Crow-Enos is showing us his young daughter's clothing, stained by the brown water that was coming out of his St. Helena pipes on Sunday.

The video doesn't do it justice since what was solid white is now tinted, almost a brownish red.

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"We did a load of laundry yesterday morning and it stained all of her clothes. It's like brown, really nasty, really nasty. These are just beyond repair though, which is a real loss because she's growing out of clothes real fast," says Crow-Enos.

The good news is that Monday, the water at his home was clear again, the bad news is that many in St. Helena are still dealing with problems. In the video above you can see the dark toilet water at a grocery store in the city. There have been nearly 80 complaints according to officials.

It stems from a private charter bus that hit a fire hydrant downtown on Saturday afternoon.

"I've never seen a fire hydrant hit like that it's just so much, just a spraying of water," said Jordan Rodriguez of St. Helena.

"Ended up losing about 4,000 gallons a minute for about 20 minutes. Through that, and with that huge rush of water into the system, it just stirred up a bunch of stuff in the pipes," said Joe Leach, assistant city manager of St. Helena.

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Pipes that have been the center of attention in St. Helena for years. Brownish/yellow water has been a seasonal issue and while the treatment process has been improved, there are $60 million worth of projects that still have to happen long-term.

"I noticed that the toilet was brown and I was like wait, what?" said 9-year-old Kenza Dorr of St. Helena.

"The water turned brown, when you flush the toilet it's still brown, wash your hands and the water is brown and everything," said Kenza's older brother Colton.

There is no timetable on the fix, but on Sunday the city flushed 400,000 gallons of water through the system in an effort to fix the problem in the short-term.

"Hopefully this stuff settles, so that's kind of the short answer, that we're able to evacuate what we can out of the system, but ultimately, pipelines need to be cleaned, or they need to be replaced," said Leach.

St. Helena officials say they do not recommend boiling water as that is not a solution to the problem.