Resourceful Boynton Residents Make Due Until Water Returns

A Green Country town is without running water. Folks in Boynton haven't been able to turn on their faucets for more than three days now after a ruptured pipeline dried up the town’s only water source.

Think of all the things you need water for: showering, cooking, washing dishes, doing laundry, even flushing the toilet.

Until the pipe is fixed in Boynton, big tanks are where folks are going to get their water; but there's one woman in town who has tapped into an obvious source.

A faucet with no running water is no problem for Lucile Lang. As 85 years old, she’s been down this road before.

“Where there's a will, there's a way,” Lang said. “When I was younger we hauled water in a barrel in a wagon, that's the way we hauled our water when didn't have a well, the system run dry.”

Old habits die hard. Lang had two barrels outside her house placed in the perfect position below the gutters to catch runoff rain from an unusually wet July.

“God is not gonna let us suffer,” she said. “I just put my barrels out and catch water to flush my toilet stool. To take a bath, heat water on the stove pour it in your bathtub, you've got your bath water.”

Lang’s son, William, has been helping her haul the water into the house. He's about as positive as his mom, but still ready for running water to return.

“As they say, you never miss your water till your well run dry, the well is dry right now,” he laughed.

On Tuesday afternoon Boynton's water pressure became low, but that evening the town was completely out of water. The town of just about 250 buys water from its neighbor to the north, Haskell.

The city said ground movement caused the main water line to break. When that happened the Muskogee County Emergency Management jumped into action.

“It's by far not one of the biggest water districts in the county, but it doesn't matter if it's one or a thousand, we respond the same way and bring the same resources every time,” said Muskogee County Emergency Management Director, Jeff Smith.

For the time being, those who aren't using rain water are taking advantage of two 500 gallon water tanks in town; one with clean water for drinking, the other for everything else.

While this week's rain has helped folks, like Lucile, the city said it actually held up workers as they tried to repair the busted pipe.

We're told the line should be repaired by Saturday, as long as no other problems come up.