"That's a key success for us," he said.
"This has been such a complex situation and the problem wasn't an easy one to uncover," he said. "We'd made all our decisions based on the levels in the number two reservoir, whether it was full or empty. But as we shifted water around town by opening and closing valves, we were wrong."
Mr King said the situation was very fluid and after two nights of digging and searching, finally late on Wednesday night, staff discovered the source of the problem.
"We followed the water lines to the fire hydrant on Cole and Allen Streets where we were convinced it was either an air lock or valve failure," he said. "Then we worked our way back up Cole St, using an old 1950 infrastructure plan and it was a narrowing down exercise. At around 9.30pm on Wednesday night, having explored the line back to the second valve from the reservoir, we removed the housing and could see the blockage. At that stage we had a dozen people working under lights.
"A float about the size of a basketball had became dislodged and sucked into the outlet pipe," he said. "We'd checked the valves for opening and shutting, but when it's an obstruction, pulling the valve apart was the only viable option. When we put more pressure on and water was getting past the valve, we thought we'd solved the problem. But we hadn't.
"These valves are buried deep and take of lot of work to dig out. The complexity of the work required was huge because the valves are built into concrete housing and it's not just a matter of removing 15 bolts. Staff made a very good effort in surgically pulling apart the valve."
After a second night of working under lights provided by the Dannevirke Fire Brigade, council staff and two outside contractors, Steve Smith and Ernie Christison, finally hit pay dirt, the problem was discovered.
"The outside contractors were absolutely brilliant, working with us outside of normal hours and nothing was a problem," Mr King said. "And they weren't the only outsiders offering to help. The back up resources of everyone helped us to manage fatigue in our in-house water team who had worked tirelessly for 72-hours to sort the problems."
Staff from council's Alliance roading team, Chris Eadsell and Jack Steed, joined other staff members Peter Sinclair and Mr King to drive water tankers throughout the crisis to keep the freezing works supplied, with help from Paddy Driver, while Peter Wimsett organised leaflet drops to residents.
"It was a team effort," Mr King said. "I'm also pleased residents phoned council to report their water problems, giving staff an indication of the scale of the problem."
Peter Wimsett, the council's manager of strategy and district development said staff had been misdirected when telemetry data was spitting out spurious information.
"It wasn't obvious what the problem was, so it was difficult to inform residents," he said. "That data was the culprit and this was a very fluid situation and we didn't know when it would be resolved. You can't rush in and dig up the entire system and initially we couldn't work out why the water wasn't getting into Cole St."
The water crisis highlights the need for residents to be prepared.
"These infrastructure lifelines aren't 100 per cent secure and people need a water back up of at least three days, to be self-sufficient," Mr King said. "Residents should also consider buying a 200-litre water tank."
And Mr Ellis thanked the community for its understanding attitude.
Tanker a welcome relief for homes
Water is something Dannevirke residents no longer take for granted.
With warnings to disinfect supplies, even for brushing teeth, and some people without any water, the arrival of a rural fire tanker containing 5000 litres of treated water in King St on Wednesday evening was greeted with delight by householders.
"Oh thank you," Ranfurly St resident Danielle Newell said. The Newell household had been without water since 11am on Tuesday, but Mrs Newell wasn't worried.
"I can't wash dishes, so there's no cooking but I've told the family we'd better have takeaways," she said. "This water is drinkable. It's awesome. But when I think about it, there are other things I'd rather not be without than water."
Mrs Newell's attitude was in strong contrast to angry and abusive residents who turned up at the home of Tararua district Mayor Roly Ellis on Tuesday night to vent their displeasure at the lack of water.
But Mr Ellis and his wife were without water, too.
Within moments of the water tanker arriving in King St on Wednesday, more than 15 people had turned up to collect their supplies.
"The water has been treated on instructions from MidCentral Health," Peter Wimsett, the council's manager of strategy and district development, told the Dannevirke News.
"It's important people have water during this crisis, but we've also got to minimise the impact on businesses, especially the Alliance freezing works," he said.
Having to use the Rural Fire Service tanker to supply water was a rare occurrence, but one the council had considered when it approved funding for the tanker, Mr Wimsett said.
