After heavy rains and floods, Austin publishes a notice to boil water throughout the city

Early Monday morning, Austin Water issued a boil water advisory to all of its customers because of high levels of silt resulting from last week's flood. And on Monday night, the city warned residents that "immediate action" was needed to avoid running out of water.

The water supply system is "the most recent infrastructure to have trouble keeping up with" the unprecedented rainfall impact, said city director Spencer Cronk, when 39, a press conference held on Monday.

Last month was the wettest September of all time in Texas. Last week's heavy rains in central Texas and Hill Country resulted in catastrophic floods. According to a city statement, a high level of debris, silt and mud requires additional filtration that slows down the process of introducing treated water into the system.

"Today, we are now asking you not to drink in the sink," Cronk said. "For caution, we publish a boil water advisory for all guests of Austin Water."

This is the first time in the history of this public service that a notice of this type is issued for the entire system. The declaration will be lifted as soon as treatment systems can be stabilized, according to the city's press release.

Guests are encouraged to boil water to drink, cook, brush their teeth and make ice cream. Activities such as showering and laundry are safe, but the city asks people to keep the water if possible.

"Water treatment plans in Austin can currently produce about 105 million gallons of water a day," a message to residents of the city said Monday afternoon. "Customers currently use about 120 million gallons per day, water tank levels are at minimum levels, and immediate action is needed to avoid running out of water."

"It's an emergency situation," the message said.

In addition to residents, this affects hospitals, schools and universities, food services and manufacturers in the area, said Cronk.

"It's just the case of Mother Nature who is throwing more on the system than he can currently handle," said Cronk.

Austin Water has three large drinking water plants, all of which draw their water from the river, said Greg Meszaros, director of Austin Water, at Monday's press conference.

"Once the flooding started, it resulted in untold amounts of soil and silt in the river system," Meszaros said.

Meszaros said the water has a high level of turbidity or a degree of cloudiness. He said the level was never reached before in the company's history. Normally, Austin Water can handle more than 300 million gallons a day, but due to extreme weather conditions, the utility has not been able to process more than 100 million gallons in the past two days, reports KXAN .

"The historic flood waters that flow into our water supply lakes contain very high levels of silt, which makes it difficult for water treatment plants to produce volume. water needed to supply customers at this time, "the statement said.

As a result of this announcement, many grocery stores in the Austin area saw queues increase as customers waited to buy bottled water.

As Austin Water works to solve this problem, customers are asked to minimize their water consumption. When preparing water, they must bring the water "to a vigorous boil for three minutes," the statement said.

More information of the city of Austin can be found here.