BEAUMONT, Texas — This drought has caused some familiar issues in Beaumont. The city has more than 100 water leaks right now, with some of them being water main breaks.
That's about half the number the city had at the worst point of last year and now city crews are working overtime to make repairs.
The City of Beaumont has doubled the amount of crews working to fix these leaks.
"Probably about five or six days ago. We noticed that it was the water was coming up from the side walk," said Beaumont resident Michael Emmert.
Emmert is one of several Beaumont residents this fall who have experienced a major water leak outside their home.
"A main break there. It was a an A/C pipe that really can't take the ground shift. And it didn't make a circle break on the pipe near a valve. So we actually had to cut a section of the pipe out and replace it," said Mike Harris, City of Beaumont Director of Water and Wastewater Operations.
The ongoing drought is causing pipes to shift, leading to leaks and breaks.
"It's not anything new. We've had it before. It's common all throughout Southeast Texas. And it's something that we're dealing with as quickly as we can. Our water repair crews are out there working hard," Beaumont City Councilman Ward 2 Mike Getz.
There's an interactive map online where you can view the status of leaks and breaks. Right now, there are over 100 water lines that need to be fixed.
"We start pulling our crews from other divisions within the water department to start repainting water mains as well. Right now we typically run about seven, eight, nine crews doing this time and we work well after hours trying to get as many of them repaired each day," Harris said.
There's also a separate map to view the status of discolored water.
"With a main break it kind of stirs sediment in the lines. So citizens may see a little spike in discolored water. We do have crews out there doing the flushing to help alleviate this," said Harris.
The City of Beaumont is spending $123 million over the next five years to replace water infrastructure so issues like these won't happen as often.
"You can drive down Gladys right now and you can see a lot of construction. That's a new water line going in. To replace an older one. And these types of infrastructure projects are important to me. And are important to the city. We continually upgrade our infrastructure to make our city better," Getz said.
The city asks you to call 311 to report any water leak.