Lampasas County water shut-off impacts thousands

This comes after a water main in Kempner ruptured on Wednesday -- and led to a stage 5 emergency water conservation for the city.

LAMPASAS COUNTY, Texas (FOX 44) — Thousands are without water in Lampasas County -- and even more are expected to be affected in the next 24 hours.

This comes after a water main in Kempner ruptured on Wednesday -- and led to a stage 5 emergency water conservation for the city.

Madison Eskilida is a volunteer firefighter in Kempner. She heard about the water supply shut off two days ago after a water line break.

"But I didn't know that we were going to be this severely affected until today," she said.

Madison got to work around 9:30 this morning and was told that her workday wouldn't consist of fighting fires. Instead--she would be fighting a city-wide water shortage.

"Saying we were gonna be water distribution. I'm like, oh... okay," she said.

She, alongside other firefighters at the Kemper Volunteer Fire Department, has been handing out cases of drinking water as well as non-potable water for toilets and livestock. In the few hours, she's been working...The fire station has already seen hundreds of affected residents.

"Probably be good to 300. A lot of people are just really irritated with the water company," Madison said.

Some residents are worried about their livestock, how to flush their toilets, and where their next sip of water will come from. The Kempner VFD says they will hand out water as long as they can--but supplying the whole city with water is difficult, and supplies can only last so long. Neighbors in surrounding counties are reaching out to help.

"I've seen people on the pages anyway saying hey, if you need showers, if you need water, come to my house! And that's people that aren't even in this county or aren't even in the city. So a lot of it's very personable here," Madison said.