Beggs residents remain without water, schools stay in virtual learning

BEGGS, Okla. — Beggs Public Schools are in virtual learning again on Thursday, making it the fourth consecutive day because of water issues the City of Beggs is dealing with.

“It makes me feel gross, like this is a third-world country and we don’t have water or clean water and we’re just trying to figure it out,” said a woman who didn’t want to be identified.

A thousand students haven’t been back to the school building since last Thursday. Classes were canceled last Friday, and students have been in virtual learning since Monday this week.

Superintendent of Beggs Public Schools Shawn Tennyson said the district is doing what it can to make decisions that are best for the students and staff.

“With no water, there’s no way we can cook food, there’s no way that kids can go to the restroom, hygiene, you know. We decided together that virtual would probably be the best thing that we can do at this point in time for our students to grow and learn,” Tennyson said.

The frustrated resident who wanted to conceal her identity said she has four children, and the whole family has adapted since they moved to Beggs four years ago.

“When we got here, it was a couple of months and we started having water issues and I didn’t think anything of it until it would become every week or we would go without water for four days,” she said. “I think we’ve been without water for up to three weeks.”

Until the water outage is fixed, households are dealing with no clean water as a new normal.

“When it would come back on, it would be brown and we don’t drink the water. I’ve had to have my children bathe in brown water because that’s all we had,” the woman said.

Tennyson said the issue is ongoing, and he hopes that crews will repair it soon so students can get back to class.

“My understanding is OG&E had a substation changed out and whenever that happened it changed the amount of voltage going through to the water pump, which put the water pump into like a limp mode,” said Tennyson. “As to when it’s going to be done, I don’t know.”

The next City of Beggs meeting is Monday at 6 p.m. at City Hall.