Thousands replenish city’s water supplies
City still under boil order as low pressure continues
Reddrick and Tonya Heard lost water pressure Monday and were down to their last few bottles by the end of the week.
Water flooded through the ceiling of Daryl Sims' northwest Houston home after a pipe burst earlier this week, but he was out of drinkable water.
Luis Coronado visited five different locations — H-E-B, Kroger, corner stores — and could not find any water for himself or his family, including his 4-year-old son.
They were among the thousands of Houstonians who restocked Friday at a city-run mass distribution site at Delmar Stadium in northwest Houston, where city employees and volunteers handed out 200 pallets stacked with water supplied by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Houston and many areas across Texas are in the midst of a water crisis that began earlier this week, when millions of residents lost access to running water during the winter storm. In Houston, water pressure plummeted after the city’s water distribution system suffered a series of equipment failures, which combined with widespread household pipe ruptures to reduce citywide wa
ter pressure below 20 pounds per square inch — the threshold at which state law requires a boil water advisory.
Many residents who were lucky enough to retain water access lacked the ability to boil it, however, due to widespread power outages. By the time the power came back on Thursday, most of the Houston region had no running water.
At the water distribution site Friday, residents lined up around the block in their cars before driving through one of a dozen tented distribution stations in the Delmar Stadium parking lot. At each station, city employees and volunteers deposited three cases of water — each containing 24 half-liter bottles — in car trunks and pickup truck beds.
Steven Molina was among the Houston residents who retained power throughout the storm, though he had spent the last two days without water pressure and was down to his last pack of water before visiting the city distribution site. On balance, he said the winter storm was worse than most hurricanes he has endured in Houston.
It was stressful to consider the prospect of running out of water altogether, Molina said.
“I try not to think about it, honestly,” he said. “That's the best thing I can do.”
By the early afternoon, supplies dwindled and residents began receiving only two cases each. The supply ran out around 2 p.m., forcing dozens of lined-up cars to pass through the tents without receiving any water.
The city is planning to organize another mass water distribution site Saturday in northeast Houston, Mayor Sylvester Turner said. And while the city is expected to remain under a boil water advisory through Monday, many residents now have stronger water pressure and the ability to safely boil it.
Fulshear and parts of Sugar Land lifted their boil advisories Friday afternoon, according to Fort Bend County emergency officials, though the rest of the county remained under an advisory.
Denver Harbor resident Irene Cantu arrived at the Friday distribution event with a car full of friends from around the city, each of whom were in a similar predicament. Cantu had spent the last three days without running water, and multiple pipes had burst in her home — a “miserable” experience, she said.
“We're totally out of water,” Cantu said. “I found two liters yesterday at HE-B, but they limited how many we could take.”
City officials also organized water distribution events Friday at senior centers and at smaller sites in city council districts around Houston. City employees and volunteers handed out a total of 1 million water bottles between all of their distribution sites Friday, Turner’s office announced.
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, joined workers to distribute water at the Delmar site Friday.
She said officials still were gathering data that they would submit to the White House to demonstrate the full scale of the damage in Texas, a necessary step before President Biden can sign a major disaster declaration for the state and unlock more federal resources.
Biden on Friday said he would sign the declaration as soon as it arrives on his desk.
“I can say to you, without a doubt, that with 4 million people in this metroplex who were out of power, who had frozen pipes, that we have suffered enormous damage and are still suffering, because people still cannot go to work or have stores open or food or water on the shelves,” Jackson Lee said.