Noblesville Declares Water Emergency

This is the headline in the news today.

Noblesville declares water emergency
By Chris Sikich
Chris.Sikich@TheNoblesvilleLedger.com
June 13, 2007
NOBLESVILLE — The city has declared a water emergency until further notice.
Residents of Noblesville are asked to stop watering their lawns because Indiana American Water and Harbour Water, the two companies serving the city, are experiencing record-breaking usage. The emergency will remain in effect until the city sends out notice advising that the emergency has been lifted.
“Everyone’s help is needed to ensure adequate water is available for public safety purposes (fighting fires) and for residential use,” Mayor John Ditslear said in a press release. “People need to know that the water shortage has reached a critical stage. This is no longer an issue of inconvenience because your lawn is turning brown — this is an issue of public safety.”He asks that people who see friends or neighbors watering their lawn help by reminding them of the water emergency. On Tuesday, Indianapolis officials asked residents to conserve water and sprinkle lawns on alternating days.

This was rather shocking to read this in the news today, I hadn't even heard about there being concern for our water supply. I read several local news sources daily on the net and unless I missed something there have been no warnings to conserve the water. I believe someone must have been asleep on the job for there to be this kind of sudden emergency with no warnings.
It is rather unnerving to think that we are in a critical stage already. There is also no rain in the forecast for the next several days, one news source said none for the next 10 days. I'm wondering if I should go and buy up drinking water to have on hand just in case.


UPDATE from the news on the emergency water situation:

Noblesville residents are being asked to stop watering lawns, washing cars and filling pools.
In addition to affecting homes and businesses, the limited access to water also affects fire hydrants which could create a public safety issue. As a precaution, fire departments have asked other departments with whom they have mutual aid agreements to send tanker trucks on all fire-related runs.
"We have to make sure that we cover our bases, and we're gonna ask for a tanker truck - something that carries 2,000 to 3.000 gallons of water or more, so that will help us with our water supply," said Noblesville Fire Department Division Chief Rick Russell.
"We'll hope that people will heed this warning and be considerate of others, thinking about public safety, number one, and hopefully in a few days, we'll get a rain, and we'll be fine," said Noblesville Mayor John Ditslear.

Wow! They are already bringing in tanker trucks for all fire-related runs. I hope there are no large fires in the area. I still can't believe they allowed this to happen with no prior instructions for conserving water. One of my neighbors said that at Meijers last night they had the water turned off. I still have neighbors watering :(