Red earthworms have been found in a water tower in Colcord, Okla forcing the town to turn off its drinking water supply according to television station KWTV.
"We've had tornadoes come through here and wipe us out and ice storms," Frank Gibby, of the town's emergency management office told KWTV. "We've seemed to have managed. Bleach doesn't even kill them. We don't know what we are dealing with,"
According to Tim Ward, assistant water division director in the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, the worms were able to get into the top of the tower through the city's water treatment plan by coming in through the top of the town's open filter system. They eventually worked their way down and ultimately began infesting the water tower KWTV reported.
The infestation has forced the town, which is 75 miles east of Tulsa, Okla. to close its school district, and all commercial businesses.
Officials gave residents an emergency advisory to collect jugs of clean water from the emergency management office until workers can clean the tower and inspect it KWTV reported. In the meantime, the state's environmental quality department will run tests on the water once it has been purified.
Town officials are also advising residents to see their physicians if they believe they had any of the contaminated water. The red worms are also known as tiger worms, manure worms, and brandling worms, and made of 90 percent water and no bones KWTV reported.
The half-inch to an inch-long earthworms also breathe through their moist skin, and can have difficulty breathing and die when they are put in dry conditions. The creature also has five pairs of enlarged blood vessels with valves to stop their blood from backing up KWTV reported. The organ is different from a human heart which has four chambers.
