Austin Water Crisis

Right before and during my bachelor run to Wisconsin and Canada it rained a ton in Austin. All the rain combined resulted in historical flooding. There was a lot of silt in the water that ended up compromising Austin’s water treatment plants. Bacteria could grow on this silt and cause you to get sick if you drank the water. Because of this, the entire city of Austin was put under its first ever water boil notice. The water boil notice meant you should only drink bottled water or water that had already been boiled. We had a little water left over from Hurricane Harvey, so Victoria had something to start with while I was gone. She also bought some bottled water. On my way back I picked up some more water. We had a nice cache of it.



In the meantime, I also went out to my garage. I have a 6-gallon jug I use for washing my hands when I work on my car.



I took it inside and cleaned all the grease and oil off of it.



It was then off to boiling water on the front burners.



Then the water would be moved to back burners to cool.



I’d then pour it into the 6-gallon jug. As you can see by the wet towel, this took a little getting used to.



A little while later I was hungry and decided to go to Which Wich. The daily newspaper talked about the water quality.



They also had signs about not using their fountain soda.



A little bit down the parking lot, Starbucks had a similar notice. They were only serving bottled beverages and pre-packaged foods.



In the end, the boil ban was lifted after a few days. It definitely did put some things into perspective. You don’t realize how much clean water you use until you have to boil it beforehand. I guess it’s something we easily take for granted. Hopefully they have beefed up the water treatment plants for the next massive rainstorm. I guess if the second-ever citywide water boil notice comes into effect, I at least have a system in place.