SAN ANTONIO – A drought of a different kind appears to be affecting people at one local apartment complex.
It is one that, it seems, is being caused by a broken underground pipe.
Keelan Carter, who lives with other family members at the McMullen Square Apartments, said they and their neighbors have been without water since late last week.
“We have to go get it on our own,” he said, showing a large plastic bin he has been filling up wherever he can find running water. “Throughout the day and all through the night, I have to keep constantly getting water.”
Carter showed KSAT the dry taps in his apartment and a large stack of dishes in his kitchen sink.
He and his neighbors say basic activities have become more like luxuries due to the lack of water.
“We haven’t been able to shower and stuff,” neighbor Cassandra Ortega said. “Thank God, my husband (and) his parents, we go and shower over there.”
Ortega lives at the apartment complex located in the 500 block of N. General McMullen, with her mother and toddler son.
She said others said they feel as though they are in the dark.
They say the only thing they have heard from the apartment complex’s management team is that they will receive a one-time discount on rent.
As for when they can expect water again, they do not know.
“They just said they’re trying to fix the problem,” Ortega said.
On Thursday morning, a crew appeared to be trying to address the issue. Several workers struggled to bail water out of a trench in the ground.
A man who identified himself as the contractor told KSAT that a broken underground pipe caused the water outage.
The man said his employees had made several attempts to fix the pipe since Saturday, but at least twice, new breaks had opened up.
He said he expected the repairs to be completed by noon Tuesday.
Soon after that expected completion time, one of Carter’s family members sent a text message saying that the water had been restored for just a few minutes and then shut off again.
KSAT attempted to speak with a property manager onsite; however, the doors remained locked an hour after the office was scheduled to open.
Several calls to the listed number for the apartment complex also went unanswered.
A San Antonio Water System spokeswoman confirmed that the problem was on the apartment complex’s private property.
“We were called to the address for a leak, checked into the site and found that there was a major leak on the private side of the meter, SAWS Spokeswoman Anne Hayden wrote in an email. “We turned off service and informed the manager/owner.”
Hayden also said due to drought conditions throughout the city, water line breaks on city and private property are common at this time.
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