CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The water boil notice has been lifted for the City of Falfurrias. The issue has been fixed and confirmed through laboratory testing that the water is now safe for consumption.
A water main break caused the City of Falfurrias to close the system at 7 p.m. Thursday night. The city shut it down in order to make the needed repairs.
Below is the story before the update.
Residents in Falfurrias are currently in a water boil, forcing neighbors and nearby restaurants to use bottled water.
Restaurant owners complain that they only found out about the water boil through social media and not through the city's official alert system.
The Stars Drive-In manager Maricelda Reyes said the restaurant was still open but customers couldn't get a drink off the menu.
"I can't sell slushes — and that's a big seller — and no tea, or any bags of ice or any cups of ice," Reyes said.
Instead Stars offered customers cold canned sodas; nothing from the fountain.
On Thursday a water main break along Highway 285 caused the city to basically run out of pressure in its water system and it had to be shutdown. The shutdown triggered the boil notice.
City officials in Falfurrias said the city is going to remain under a water boil until at least Saturday.
Owner of the Side Door Café, Dina Vargas said she only found out about the water boil on social media, hours after she opened. She had expected to get an official alert.
"We're using bottled water to make coffee and tea and stuff," Vargas said "What I was upset about was that I had to call the utility board myself because it was only on Facebook."
"We did not know until close to midnight last night that we were going to have to issue a water boil notice," Falfurrias Utilities Director Adrian Montemayor said. "At that point in time, the best case scenario for us was to issue it out on social media."
Yolette Olivarez brought her daughter Olivia to the Side Door Café for lunch. Mom wasn't too upset over the water boil but she was a bit cautious.
"I felt hesitant to come out, but I trust the City of Falfurrias and I appreciate what they've done so far," Olivarez said.
The city utility director said he had to call a company from the valley to come up and help with the repairs because the company had the equipment to get it done.
Montemayor did not have an estimate on the cost but, he says it will be in the tens of thousands of dollars. He's hoping that water samples handed over to state water quality experts won't show any problems.
He believes that sometime Saturday afternoon those results should be known and after that the boil alert could be lifted.
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