People in the Rockwall area woke up with no water Wednesday morning and few answers. Customers of RCH Water Supply told NBC 5 they either had no water or low water pressure.
A post on the water company’s website notified people of a water outage but offered no explanation for the issue.
The owner of Arcadia Nursery said when he called the company an employee told him they were basically out of water supply and didn’t know when it would return.
“Stuff happens, [water] mains break, they get fixed, but never heard of anyone running out of water,” said Wendall Norris, the nursery’s owner.
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He tried renting a water truck but there was no one available so his team went to the local Walmart and bought huge cases of bottled water to water the plants by hand.
“We’ll start losing things in 24 hours,” Norris said. “[The plants] are already getting stressed.”
A post on the city of Rockwall’s Facebook page blamed the outage on excessive watering by people in McLendon-Chisholm. Yet those residents told NBC 5 there were no calls to conserve until RCH Water Supply asked people to stop outdoor watering on Tuesday.
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“And boom this morning – nothing,” said Nikki Harris.
The statement on the City of Rockwall's Facebook page reads in part: “The City of Rockwall is pumping 2.1 million gallons of water per day to McLendon-Chisholm, which is well over normal usage levels for a single day. However, due to excessive outdoor watering, residents’ usage levels have exceeded this amount by about 1 million gallons extra per day for the last several weeks.”
Still, residents tell us the water conservation from RCH did not happen far enough in advance and felt they should’ve known sooner about the possibility of a shutdown.
"Today we got a notice that no watering was allowed at all," said resident Chris George. "There was no warning, no drought contingency plan put in place, nothing to give us any kind of inclination. We wake up this morning and don’t have any water."
Harris traveled to Costco to buy water for her family and animals. She spent the afternoon trying to keep her horses cool.
“These guys don’t understand,” said Harris as she cared for her horses. “They’re used to having misters to keep them cool and I come out and hose them down, but unfortunately today is not a good day for 100 degrees in Texas for this.”
Neighbors believe the blame falls on RCH Water Supply – which hasn’t improved service as the community continues to grow.
“It happens every year,” said resident Bryan Allen. “Half of my neighborhood is without water. Part of it has water.”
RCH Water Supply does have a Drought Contingency plan on its website which lists criteria and protocols for drought response. Calls to RCH have not been returned.
