HOUSTON — The City of Houston is asking residents to conserve water due to moderate to severe drought conditions in the area.
On Tuesday, the city announced it has entered Stage One of its Drought Contingency Plan, effective immediately.
Stage One calls for residents to conserve water due to record heat combined with the lack of rain.
During Stage One conservation, residents are asked to limit outdoor watering to twice a week between the hours of 7 p.m. and 5 a.m. under the following schedule:
- Sundays and Thursdays are reserved for single-family residential customers with even-numbered street addresses.
- Saturday and Wednesdays are reserved for the same customers, but with odd-numbered street addresses.
- Tuesdays and Fridays are for all other customers.
Water restrictions are currently voluntary.
“This is just kind of getting people into that mindset. Understand that water is precious and we simply want people to join with us and conserve," Mayor Sylvester Turner said. “I do think it is prudent, before we get in a dire situation, for us just to have these announcements, to try to be proactive, to work to conserve and that way we can go through the summer, getting into the fall, hopefully without even going through stage two.”
Stage 2 would make the restrictions mandatory.
The ground is so dry, the city Houston had 50 water main breaks over the weekend.
"And what that is saying, is the soil is very dry and we’re starting to see some shifting," Turner said.
The call to conserve water comes after records were broken on Monday at Bush, Hobby and Galveston with high temperatures reaching above the 100-degree mark.
Monday was the second day in a row of triple-digit temperatures in the Houston area.
The KHOU 11 Weather Team is forecasting highs to reach the upper-90s on Tuesday and Wednesday before returning to 100 and above as we head to the weekend.
No real heat relief is expected to get to the area until maybe Monday or Tuesday of next week.