NATCHEZ — While all Adams County residents have lost power in the wake of Hurricane Gustav, county officials say that other essential services will remain unaffected.

Natchez Water Works director David Gardner and Adams County Water Association general manager Ken Herring both said that their water services have not been affected by the hurricane.

“We have had no disruption in service at all,” Gardner said. “There was no pressure loss at all (when the power went out Monday). We have full generator power and enough fuel to get through it.”

Gardner said that each water well is being powered by a generator that switches on automatically when the electricity goes out and, when full of gasoline, runs for 15 hours consecutively.

Also, Gardner said the water plant has a generator that runs for 60 consecutive hours when full of fuel.

“We have fuel trucks coming in every day to refill the generators until the power comes back on,” Gardner said. “I’m keeping in constant contact with our fuel suppliers and they will keep us full of fuel.”

Herring said that four large generators are keeping the Adams County Water Association up and running, and that he expects no disruption in service.

“We have stocked up on diesel fuel and supplies before the storm,” Herring said. “We’re just keeping the generators full of diesel. (The water) has not been affected by Hurricane Gustav.”

Herring said that during Hurricane Katrina, two of the wells lasted 14 days with generator power, and he expects them to last that long once again.

While the water service will not be affected in Adams County, the postal service might take a couple of days to get back to normal.

Natchez Postmaster Bill Farrior said that until the power comes back on, the postal service will only deliver first class and priority mail to areas that are accessible.

The post office has three generators borrowed from Jackson that are running some power, but not enough for carriers to scan all their mail to deliver.

“It’s almost impossible to operate normally without electricity,” Farrior said. “We’ve got handheld scanners that won’t operate and the computers that operate handheld stamps and money orders won’t work either.”

Farrior said at the beginning of the day Tuesday, he didn’t think the post office would be able to deliver any mail at all.

“We talked to Civil Defense Director Stan Owens and he strongly suggested that we curtail delivery,” Farrior said. “But the postal service makes every effort to deliver the mail rain, sleet or snow, and we will make every effort in both the rural areas and the city.”

Farrior said the post office has requested fuel and a fuel truck is coming from Jackson to make sure all the mail cars and trucks have an ample supply of fuel while the electricity is out.

Farrior also said when the power comes back up, the postal service will hurry to catch up with the mail backlog.

“When we get power up, we’ll catch up although it may take a couple of days,” Farrior said. “The (postal workers) have gone beyond the call of duty.”

The post office may have been thrown into a lurch because of the hurricane, but the garbage pickup will continue as normal in Adams County, Waste Management site manager Andy Yates said.

Yates said garbage pickup will restart today and continue through Thursday and Friday.

“We try to normally take off on Wednesday, but if all the roadways are clear, we’ll collect garbage that day since we didn’t get out (on Tuesday),” Yates said. “Thursday and Friday we’ll pick up garbage as regularly scheduled. Unless something comes up with the weather, we’ll be back on our regular schedule Thursday.”

Yates said the crews will concentrate on household garbage instead of debris in the next few days.

“With the electricity being off a long time, there will be lots of food wastage,” Yates said. “For health and aesthetic purposes, we’ll first pick up the household waste.”