Jourdanton's entire municipal water system went down Wednesday morning, forcing city officials to issue a boil water notice for the roughly 6,900 people who rely on the utility and to open an emergency drinking water site at the police department that stayed open until midnight. The outage hit at 8:17 a.m. and left the small Atascosa County city scrambling to get water flowing again while warning residents not to trust what came out of the tap.
Outage Triggers Citywide Emergency Response
City officials confirmed the boil water notice after the system-wide outage, according to KABB Fox 29 San Antonio. The notice will stay in effect until officials determine the water is safe to drink, per the station's report. In the meantime, the city set up an emergency water distribution site at the Jourdanton Police Department parking lot to help elderly, homebound, and medically vulnerable residents get drinking water, according to a notice posted by the City of Jourdanton.
Residents are being told to bring any tap water to a vigorous rolling boil and keep it boiling for two minutes before letting it cool, per the same account. Anyone unable to boil water is advised to use bottled water or another safe source instead. City officials warned that children, seniors, and people with weakened immune systems may be particularly vulnerable to harmful bacteria that could be present without the boiling precaution.
Weeks of Pipe Breaks Preceded the Failure
Wednesday's citywide collapse did not come out of nowhere. The City of Jourdanton's Alert Center shows utility crews had already been chasing leaks across town for weeks, including an August 9 break near Zanderson Avenue and Willow Street and a July 28 leak that hit Oak, Cantrell, and Main Streets. That pattern of recurring pipe failures left the system under repeated stress even before pressure dropped citywide.
The Jourdanton public water system is advising customers to boil water before drinking, cooking, making ice, brushing their teeth, washing their face, or any other consumption purpose, the station notes. The city has said it will issue another notice once the boil water advisory is lifted.
Why State Rules Demand a Boil Notice
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality required Jourdanton's public water system to issue the notice, and that requirement is not discretionary. Under Texas Administrative Code § 290.46, the agency mandates a boil water notice any time distribution pressure drops below 20 pounds per square inch, because pressure loss can create a siphon effect that pulls outside contaminants into the pipes, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The advisory kicks in automatically even before any contamination is confirmed.
Lifting the notice will not be quick. State rules require pressure to be restored above 20 psi, distribution lines to be fully flushed, proper chlorine disinfectant levels to be re-established, and certified lab testing to confirm the water is free of coliform bacteria before the notice can be rescinded, per state regulations. That lab testing alone typically takes about 24 hours after samples are collected. Separately, state law requires public water suppliers to immediately notify the TCEQ any time an unplanned outage or severe pressure loss occurs, ensuring state oversight during events like this one.
A County Seat Built on One Water System
Jourdanton is the county seat of Atascosa County, a General Law Type A municipality about 37 miles south of San Antonio where State Highways 16 and 97 meet, with a population of roughly 4,400 to 4,500 residents. Public water system records identify the network as PWS TX0070002, a groundwater-dependent utility serving approximately 6,900 people across the broader municipal area, per TapWaterData and EPA records. That single system also supplies the town's civic core, including Jourdanton High School and the Atascosa County Justice Center, both near the highway intersection at the heart of town, as Hoodline has previously reported.
This is not Jourdanton's first system-wide water emergency. The city experienced a major boil water notice in February 2021 during Winter Storm Uri, when frozen controls at an elevated storage tank combined with surging demand to drop citywide pressure below the 20 psi threshold — part of a statewide freeze event that affected more than 1,300 Texas public water systems.
Part of a Wider Texas Pattern
Jourdanton's outage lands amid a broader run of water troubles across South and Central Texas this summer. Communities including Carrizo Springs, Bulverde, and Bastrop County have all issued emergency boil water notices in recent months due to line breaks, severe weather, and aging infrastructure, as Hoodline has reported in its coverage of Carrizo Springs' water limits and the boil notice that hit Bastrop County's Tahitian Village. Rural utilities across the state are facing heightened strain from summer conditions and distribution networks that, in many towns, are decades old.
For now, Jourdanton residents are being told to keep boiling water for all consumption uses and to watch for the city's next update. Officials have said a follow-up notice will go out once testing confirms the water meets state safety standards and the advisory is officially rescinded.
