Lightning has essentially struck twice in Barriere, as the community grapples more issues in its water system.

Mayor Ward Stamer says a lightning strike in late June has caused part of the district’s water system to malfunction.

He points out that comes not long after the community’s main water well was offline for three months to be fixed, which cost more than $50,000.

“Our watering restrictions were gone, everything was working fine and then we got a lightning strike, and what that lightning strike did was take out a bunch of electronics. What ended up happening was, there was some miscommunication between the electronics and one of the wells ended up overpumping.

Stamer says level two watering restrictions will be in place for the next two weeks at least in Barriere, with two of the three wells offline for the time being. He says the district wants to make sure it doesn’t overload the only well in use.

“The number one concern that we have is fire protection, the second is domestic consumption, and the third is irrigation. So we certainly don’t want to be in a situation where somebody has a fire, and we don’t have any water in the reservoirs and we can’t fight the fire. So that’s the main reason why we decided to implement this.”