MCLENDON-CHISHOLM, Texas — Residents in a Rockwall County city were without water on Wednesday morning.
RCH Water Supply, which provides water to residents in McClendon-Chisholm, sent an alert about a water outage.
"RCH is experiencing an issue with its water supply," the alert said. "Every effort is being made to resolve the problem as soon as possible."
McClendon-Chisholm is a city of about 4,200 residents south of Rockwall. Officials were aware of the outage and working with RCH to resolve the issue, though it remained unclear how many homes were affected.
RCH officials said the company purchases a set amount from Rockwall, which sends the water at a set rate per minute. On Wednesday, the amount of water coming from Rockwall was not enough to keep RCH's storage tanks full. When the tanks went dry, RCH shut down the water supply. The tanks were being re-filled at their normal rate Wednesday afternoon.
Several residents in the Austin Corners neighborhood confirmed their water was cut off around 8 a.m.
RCH earlier this week had alerted residents about moving to an alternate watering schedule. On Tuesday around 5 p.m., RCH told residents to stop all outside watering "until further notice."
On Wednesday morning, the water supply was cut off in the Austin Corners neighborhood, which sits off FM Road 549. It was unclear how widespread the issue was.
Sherry London, a member of the Austin Corners homeowners association, was among the homeowners without water Wednesday. She said she contacted RCH and was told that water was turned off because residents did not conserve enough.
RCH did not give London an estimated time on when water service would be restored, she said.
Rockwall officials released a statement to RCH customers saying the city was still pumping 2.1 million gallons of water to RCH on Wednesday "and has NOT cut off supply and its customers."
The Rockwall statement said the city has been pumping 2.1 million gallons daily to RCH, "which is well over normal usage levels for a single day."
"However, due to excessive outdoor watering, residents' usage levels have exceeded this amount by about 1 million gallons extra per day for the last several weeks," the city said. "RCH Water Supply issued an order yesterday for their residents to end outdoor watering altogether to attempt to stay within contracted levels."
At 5 p.m., water pressure began to return to McClendon-Chisholm neighborhoods.
RCH company field technician Dwight Lindop told WFAA that the return of water service would likely arrive with a temporary boil water notice.
"We've got to have that three or four days in a row to make sure it's leveled out and we don't have another episode that we run out again, and then we're right back in the boil water notice," Lindop said. "So, we need to get everything straightened out for four or five days in order to make sure it doesn't happen again."
RCH is still asking residents to refrain from outdoor watering during the current emergency.