CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Tina Rodrigiz has been without water in her apartment for a week and three days. She lives with her two kids, and they’ve relied on bottled water from La Armada as well as help from friends and family.
“We’re kind of feeling the pressure a little bit,” she said. “My kids are pretty resilient. For everything we’ve been through, they’re pretty good. My son, he’s always got my back, it’s just the walking is a lot for us, to carry a lot of water, but we do it.”
A big issue for Rodrigiz and her kids is she has no car to get around and get the things she needs.
“My mom helps me take a shower every now and again, but transportation is getting hard for us,” she said. “I’m just trying to find a place for them to find a good shower, because sponge baths are just not helping.”
According to Gary Allsup, CEO of the Corpus Christi Housing Authority, crews have been working daily since last Friday in an effort to get water lines repaired.
“They are working like mad. Our goal, and our hope, is that we’ll have everything back online Friday. We’re getting a lot of them done, getting them turned back on. Unfortunately, a lot of times when we turn the water back on from one leak, we wind up with another leak that shows up someplace else,” he said.
There are around 400 apartments in the La Armada complex. Allsup said originally every apartment was affected, with an estimated 600 total leaks found in the plumbing.
“We’ve had a lot of individual lines that were frozen, we’ve had a number of fittings that were blown off by the pressure as the system came back on, so it’s a combination of things, but I don’t think it’s anything that’s not fixable,” he said.
As of Wednesday afternoon, around 150 of those leaks still needed repairs. Allsup said he did not know how many apartments were still affected, as some of the leaks affect multiple apartments.
In the meantime, La Armada is providing bottled water to all the residents who are without water, one case a day.
“We thought it was needed, so we made sure we had it,” Allsup said.
While the extra water helps Rodrigiz and her family, it is not a perfect cure for them.
“Since I have to do all three of the dishes, the kids’ baths, there’s three of us to take baths, it goes kind of quick,” she said.
Rodrigiz’s son’s karate instructor has also been helping out the family, bringing them water, and allowing her son to shower at his house.
Allsup said crews will continue to work until lines are repaired, and hopes service will be restored by Friday.
“We’re moving as quickly as we can, and our goal is to get residents back in service absolutely as soon as possible,” he said. “We recognize it’s tough, it’s been a tough couple of weeks for everybody, we’re doing our absolute best to get things online absolutely as soon as we can.”
