Following three days of no water on the east side of Interstate 45 in Ferris, Councilwoman Sherie Chapman (right) took action and obtained bottled water for the residents. Helping is Fire Captain Clayton Haughey, Firefighter Garrett Wright and Councilman Tommy Scott.
WATER DISASTER BRINGS RESIDENTS TOGETHER
FERRIS – Following three days of no water on the east side of Interstate 45 in Ferris, a frustrated Councilwoman Sherie Chapman took action.
She grabbed the city’s credit card and bought two pallets of bottled water from Walmart in Ennis. Walmart then donated an additional 60 gallons of distilled water for citizens with specialized water needs such as oxygen and CPAP machines.
Ronnie and Norma Magness provided a trailer and hauled the water from Ennis to the Ferris Pavilion.
That started the proverbial ball rolling.
Pastor Dick Lambert and Chaplain Larry Hunt with the Ellis County Crisis Response Ministry contacted the Salvation Army which donated two palletes. Waste Management donated water, and Mayor Jim Swafford and Investigator Walter “Gator” Weiss donated a pallet together.
Volunteers, along with police and fire department personnel, gave out water to anyone affected by the outage.
At the end of the day, around 400 cases of water were handed out.
The water outage began when a valve was mistakenly closed, shutting off the water needed to fill the “Yellow Jacket” tower on I-45.
Residents had no water pressure, and were unable to bath or cook food among other things.
The problem was resolved when retired public works employee Kenneth Cousins came to the rescue, telling water department employees where he thought the correct valve was located.
Once the valve was opened, water began filling the tower, and water pressure was restored.