The city has mobilized additional repair teams to work on the eight water main breaks surrounding schools in the south end of the school district, which means other breaks will have to wait, including one that created a new body of water.
In the middle of a dry southwest Houston, the ducks have managed to find a refuge in a large marshy place to wet their wings with an unwelcome side effect.
"It's literally like a lake," Barbara Levy said. "Sort of a dead fish kind of smell, yucky."
The Levy family noticed the new pond Tuesday morning. By the afternoon, a neighbor had reported a water main break to the city, but as of Tuesday evening, there was no work activity. And from then, it became massive.
"Normally this field is perfectly dry," Levy said.
Instead, crews are focused on eight breaks that are affecting the water pressure and even the ability to run air conditioning units at six HISD schools. The list includes Almeda, Foster and Frost elementaries, Thomas Middle School, and Sterling and Worthing high schools.
Crews will work overnight if needed but in southwest Houston, but that doesn't ease the Levys' concerns.
"If it's sewage water, then there's a sanitary issue that can be a major concern," Robert Levy said.
"I know there are hundreds of leaks in the city, but for this quantity of water, and we're trying to cooperate and restrain our water use, this is not acceptable," Barbara Levy said.
The city says crews will be at that massive break first thing in the morning. As we've been reporting, the drought has caused hundreds of problems across the city and crews are stretched thin.
HISD says the water pressure problem wasn't significant to shut down campuses on Tuesday but they were ready with buses to transport kids just in case. Water is expected to be fully restored by the morning,.
