Beer Company Sends 2,000 Cases Of Drinking Water To Ruidoso

Anheuser-Busch is providing 2,156 cases – or more than 51,000 cans of drinking water – for use by families affected by a compromised water supply in Ruidoso, New Mexico.

The water left the company’s brewery in Cartersville, Ga.on Friday night and is scheduled to arrive around 10 a.m. this morning at the local Budweiser distributor, L&F Distributorsin Roswell, New Mexico. Working with The Salvation Army and local relief officials, L&F will ensure the water gets to residents in need.

Valentine’s Day weekend is usually great for Ruidoso as the village hosts couples in search of a cozy cabin getaway. But with this water crisis, people couldn’t shower or flush the toilet regularly. The chance for romance in Ruidoso went down the drain.

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez has ordered 100 more members of the New Mexico National Guard to Ruidoso to help restore the town’s water service. They join 30 other Guardsmen and representatives of several state agencies who have been in Ruidoso since last week after water mains broke in subzero temperatures and forced water to be shut off until repairs can be made.

Personnel from the Department of Homeland Security, the National Guard, village forestry and local fire, police, water utility, planning and zoning and Public Service Company of New Mexico worked over the weekend to restore service.

The state Environment Department has issued a precautionary boil water advisory for all communities impacted by water outages. They advise residents to boil water for 5 minutes before drinking, cooking and washing dishes.

The Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management is reporting that significant progress has been made in the effort to restore water service to the Village of Ruidoso.

Massive water main problems occurred due to the sub-zero temperatures that impacted New Mexico last week that also caused a natural gas outage affecting 32,000 for 6 days.

The village hopes to have services restored to everyone by Tuesday evening.

“The Village of Ruidoso is most appreciative of all the help from the Governor, the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, the Environment Department, the National Guard and others that have come to our aid,” said Mayor Ray Alborn. He added, “we couldn’t meet our time frame without this support.”

Cloudcroft and Timberon have also suffered water outages in municipal pipelines that were impacted by last week’s blast of arctic air. Water service has been restored in Cloudcroft and all but two residents in Timberon have water service.

The State Emergency Operations Center continues to monitor the after affects of the storm with a 24 hour duty officer.

“People in Ruidoso are in need of fresh drinking water, and this is one way Anheuser-Busch and our local wholesaler can help,” said Pete Kraemer, Vice President of Supply for Anheuser-Busch. “It’s important for communities to pull together and lend a helping hand.”

The NM Environment Department has confirmed that water in the system is not contaminated; however, boil water advisory is still in effect. Bottled water for drinking is available at the main Fire Station, 541 Sudderth.

For information on boiling water for drinking go to: www.nmenv.state.nm.us

Over the last three years Anheuser-Busch and its distributors have provided nearly six million cans of packaged drinking water to victims of natural disasters. These included fires in California and Colorado; hurricanes and storms in Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, South Dakota, Mississippi and Texas; and flooding in New York, Georgia, Tennessee, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Wyoming, Missouri and Wisconsin.

Since 1988, Anheuser-Busch has donated more than 69 million cans of drinking water following natural and other disasters.

Helping communities cope with disasters has been an Anheuser-Busch tradition since 1906 when Adolphus Busch made a donation to victims of the San Francisco earthquake. Today, in addition to providing monetary support, Anheuser-Busch packages fresh drinking water and donates it to emergency relief organizations for distribution to those in need.