Okmulgee County Residents Upset After Going Without Water During Christmas

Some Okmulgee County residents said they are frustrated after being without water over the Christmas holiday. 

Randy Sissom was filling up water jugs again after he lost water at his house near Twin Hills in Okmulgee County. 

"You can generally tell, if it's going to be really cold or anything slightly abnormal, we're getting ready to have problems," he said. 

He said this has happened to him several times in the past few years, and it's upsetting. 

He said his water turned back on this afternoon but has very little pressure and looks brown. 

"I'm running through two 12-inch commercial filters, and it was really dirty, it looks similar to iced tea," he said. 

Okmulgee County Rural Water District 2 said they have a widespread outage because of an inlet failure in the water system due to the demand of customers dripping their faucets in the freezing temperatures. 

Delbert Sloan moved to the area a year ago and said this shouldn't be happening. 

"Moved back to the country where we could raise livestock and now, we're having to haul water for the livestock," he said. 

Sloan said he's leaving town for a few days and worried about what things will be like when he gets home. 

"We've never run into a situation like this, where you have to hustle to keep water in your house," he said. 

Both Sloan and Sissom said they feel like they don't have answers on why this is happening, and they want things to change. 

"I've thought about drilling a well, I've thought about getting a couple of tanks and storing 4,000 gallons that way if something happens, I've got a month of water, It's just stuff you shouldn't have to think about," Sissom said. 

The water district said they are in the process of adding another inlet to the system, and they are planning and funding for more upgrades.