UPDATE: The city posted on Facebook at 5:33 p.m. it had been able to get its backup well working again, but it may take several hours before residents have water pressure. The city encouraged residents to turn on outside faucets to air out water lines, and warned residents will still need to boil water until told otherwise.
KIRBY, Texas – The city of Kirby has no water service and the City’s phone system was temporarily down Friday, city officials announced in a Facebook post, calling it a “major emergency.”
Officials say a well tripped early Friday morning and has caused the entire city to be without water. The Public Works Department and a contractor are working to repair the problem, city officials said.
5:33pm Update: Well 2 is up and running. It may be a few hours before residents have water pressure. You are...
Posted by City of Kirby on Friday, July 8, 2022
Water distribution
As of 2:15 p.m., the City of Kirby says it has received additional water and moved its distribution location from City Hall to True Vision Church at 2826 Ackerman Road.
Residents should bring a current ID or water bill when they come to pick up water.
The fire department will also be driving around to distribute water to both elderly and disabled residents. Anyone who needs water delivered can call 210-661-8515.
Monique Vernon, Kirby’s City Manager, said they are also are working with Bexar County Emergency Management, the San Antonio Food Bank and some neighboring cities to get donated water and food for residents as well.
Entire city without water
Vernon said a motor at the city’s primary well had burned up, and the backup well was already offline for electrical repairs.
Then, a previously unreported leak drained the backup water the city had in storage.
Kirby Public Works is working to get the backup well online to help service the city.
“Our backup well site, which would have kicked on, was already down for electrical repairs. So we are in the process now of trying to get the backup up and running within the next few hours,” Vernon said.
When service returns, residents should boil water
Because of the low pressure in the water system, the city has put out a boil water notice for any water used for public consumption once service is restored.
Water used for cooking, drinking, brushing teeth, and washing hands should first be brought to a vigorous, rolling boil and boiled for two minutes.
The public water system will issue a follow-up notice rescinding the boil water order once it’s no longer necessary.
Residents were encouraged to spread the news to their neighbors, who may not use the internet.
Authorities advise using 911 for emergencies and 210-661-8515 for non-emergencies.
Phone outage resolved
In addition to the water outage, city officials said a rolling spam call also shut down the city’s phone system for a bit.
“In the midst of this, there was a spam attack on our phone system and the I.T. and the phone company were working to isolate that. They did find where it came from, but it kept spoofing and rolling to other numbers. But that has been resolved and all the phones are back up and running,” Vernon said.