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Helping hands plentiful  By the editorial board Feb 6, 2017 The trouble started slowly, with a message Thursday evening from the Orange Water and Sewer Authority asking its customers to “use water wisely” because an overfeed of fluoride at its treatment plant had curtailed supply and forced the authority to turn to Durham for water. By mid-day Friday, the situation had worsened considerably. A water main break near Dobbins Road was disgorging water, dropping pressure in the system and raising health concerns. The Orange County Health Department said the water was unsafe and ordered residents not to drink it or use it for any purpose. Businesses throughout southern Orange County shut down. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill closed in the early afternoon and urged any students that could to leave campus for the weekend. While by Saturday afternoon the water supply was again usable, the disruption in and around Chapel Hill was significant. Bars and restaurants lost a busy Friday night’s worth of business, and Saturday’s sales were impacted, too. Residents rushed to secure bottled water; traffic out of town, especially toward Durham, was heavy through Saturday afternoon. UNC’s basketball game with Notre Dame was postponed to Sunday and moved to Greensboro. As the work week began, things were pretty much back to normal, although it remained unclear how the break could have shut down an entire system serving more than 80,000 customers. OWASA officials will meet Tuesday with business owners to no doubt get an earful of dismay. But there were, as often happens in events like this, plenty of reasons to be reassured about people’s resilience and eagerness to help others. UNC administrators helped students stuck on