'Catastrophic failure': Frustration builds as Austin water crisis lingers

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Tens of thousands of Austin residents continued to have no running water Friday, as the extended freeze showed widespread damage to the city's water system.

As the city's electricity crisis has evolved into a water crisis, it has left officials scrambling to identify line breaks and calling for assistance from the federal government and neighboring states to provide drinking water.

City officials still had not provided a timeline for when full water service would be restored.

"We don't know how long it's going to take to have integrity in the system," Mayor Steve Adler said in an MSNBC interview Friday. "It's apparent that there's a significant number of (water main) breaks."

Austin Water Director Greg Meszaros had said a large portion of Austin Waters service area was without water. On Thursday, he said "tens of thousands" of leaks in the system have wreaked havoc on Austin's water supply.

In a media briefing Friday, Meszaros indicated there was reason for encouragement, although no solid answers were given about the timeline of full restoration to Austin's water system.

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The utility's water reservoirs were about one-third full Friday. As the reserves of treated water build, Austin Water can push more out into the system and restore the water pressure that makes faucets run.

That begins with pressurizing the system's two central pressure zones, which cover to large portions of Central, Northeast, East, and Southeast Austin. A map published Friday by the city showed the remaining pressure systems in western Austin as well as North and South Austin were experiencing outages, but it was unclear which individual neighborhoods and streets were affected.

The utility will need to continue pressurizing the central zones before more water can be pushed out to other zones.

"Our central zone is the backbone of our system — the foundation by which we bring water to our north and south pressure zones," Meszaros said. "The central zone has improved considerably over the last 24 hours and are now pumping water into our other zones."

Adler said 1 million gallons of water were being shipped Friday from neighboring states to Austin for distribution. As of Friday afternoon, details on how to get access to that water were not available.

The lack of those critical details has left some Austin residents frustrated.

"All I have heard from Austin Water is that I am under a boil water notice," Anderson Mill resident Kristen Pettineo said. "I don’t have water to boil."

The city has purchased water from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and was working to set up distribution sites, city spokesman Jeffery Patterson said.

The Austin boil water notice came as widespread power outages have had a major toll on the state's local water utilities. On Thursday, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Executive Director Toby Baker said 13 million Texans were under boil water notices.

The effect has been felt acutely in the city, where a loss in water pressure forced evacuations at St. David's South Austin Medical Center late Wednesday.

More:St. David's, other hospitals struggle with failing water pressure, heat, officials say

But it has not been isolated to Austin.

Like Austin, Pflugerville is under a boil water notice until further notice. Manville Water Supply Corp. officials also issued a boil water advisory for their customers as they have faced intermittent service.

Bastrop residents west of the Colorado River and those between the Colorado River and Texas 95 are under boil water notices. The city of Smithville has also issued a boil water notice.

In the Bee Cave area, some Travis County Water District 17 customers have been without water since Sunday. All of Travis County Water District 10 remained under a boil water notice Friday.

Water systems under a boil water notice likely will face a logjam from state regulators as water pressure stabilizes. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality requires testing to ensure no unsafe bacteria is in the supply before lifting the advisories.

Baker said the environmental commission is coordinating with the Environmental Protection Agency to bring in mobile testing labs from out of state.

But timelines for water service to return to normal remain elusive. That has been frustrating, said Pettineo, whose Northwest Austin home has not had running water since Wednesday.

"I just feel like this is such a catastrophic failure on every level," she said. "If I wasn’t so consumed with finding a functioning shower or a functioning toilet, I would be so angry."

American-Statesman reporters Sarah Asch, Kelsey Bradshaw, Cameron Drummond and Rebeccah Macias contributed to this report.

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