San Antonio, Texas Water Outage Today

San Antonio water system at a glance

San Antonio Water System is the water system EPA lists for San Antonio, serving about 2,643,729 people. Customers know it as San Antonio Water System (SAWS); the name on your bill is the one to call.

What feeds the taps in San Antonio

San Antonio does not collect its own raw water. San Antonio Water System buys surface water from Water Exploration Stein Roger Well Field, Schertz Seguin Local Government Corporat, and Central Texas Regional Wsc and distributes it through its own mains. Treatment points named in EPA's facility list include Sunshine Plant - 1929 St Cloud, Sutton Plant - 938 Sutton Dr, and Turtle Creek 3 Plant - 4641 Bluffcreek. After treatment the water is held in 148 storage tanks and reservoirs and pushed uphill by 287 pump facilities; that storage is the buffer that keeps taps running for a few hours after a pump or main fails.

The outage angle. Because the water arrives from Water Exploration Stein Roger Well Field, a break on that supplier's transmission main or a plant shutdown upstream can leave San Antonio without water even when the local pipes are sound. Watch the supplier's alerts as well as San Antonio Water System (SAWS).

Main breaks and shutoffs in San Antonio: the usual causes

Which failures hit San Antonio hardest follows from its weather, its housing stock and how it is supplied.

• Flooding and heavy rain. NOAA logged 249 flood, flash flood and heavy rain reports in Bexar County from 2015 through 2026, and 5 days a year bring an inch of rain or more. High water can wash out the ground under buried pipe, flood pump stations and push treatment plants past their limits, which is why boil notices so often follow a flood.
• Summer demand. San Antonio has about 87 days a year at or above 95°F and 42 at or above 100°F, and the hottest day in the record came on August 21, 2024. Lawn irrigation and cooling push demand to its yearly high, so pumps run hard, tanks drain faster than they refill and pressure sags on high ground in the evening.
• Storm-driven power loss. Thunderstorm wind, hail and tornado reports in Bexar County number 425 since 2015. Pump stations and treatment plants that depend on CPS Energy run on the electric grid, so a storm that downs power lines can lower water pressure even when no pipe is damaged.
• Freezing weather. San Antonio sees about 10 days a year with a low at or below 32°F, and very few days at or below 20°F. The coldest morning in the 2015 through 2025 record came on February 15, 2021. Frozen service lines and meters cause single-address outages, while ground frost and thaw cycles crack older mains and produce the street-wide breaks.
• Long dry spells. The longest stretch without measurable rain since 2015 lasted 37 days, ending October 31, 2024. Dry soil shrinks and shifts around buried pipe, and breaks often cluster when the rain returns and the ground swells again.
• Damage from other crews. Water mains share the ground with gas, power and telecom lines, and a strike by any contractor can dry up a block in seconds.

Freeze, heat and rain: the San Antonio weather record

Main break season in San Antonio runs from late fall into early spring, with the coldest stretch around December through February.

Because this is gridded reanalysis data, individual hot and cold days can read a few degrees off what the airport recorded. The day counts and yearly patterns are the useful part.

Boil water advisories and the federal violation record for San Antonio

EPA lists no health-based violations for San Antonio Water System since 2015. It also lists 2 monitoring or reporting entries that are about paperwork rather than water quality, such as a missed sample or a late report.

Most recent entries, all monitoring or reporting:

• June 2016: A public notice and annual reports violation It is marked resolved.
• February 2016: A missed or late monitoring or reporting requirement (coliform bacteria testing) It is marked resolved.

When San Antonio loses pressure after a break or a failed test, San Antonio Water System (SAWS) asks affected customers to boil water for drinking and cooking. The notice ends only after samples come back clean, which usually takes one to two days after service returns, and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) supervises the process.

Lead service lines and old plumbing in San Antonio

The most recent 90th-percentile lead result filed for San Antonio Water System is 1.6 ppb (2024). The federal action level is 15 ppb, so that result is far from the limit.

The age of the housing matters more than the utility's test average: 29.2% of occupied homes in San Antonio predate 1970 and 1986 was the year lead pipe and solder were banned. Flush the cold tap after an outage and ask San Antonio Water System (SAWS) whether your service line is on its lead inventory.

When will the water come back on in San Antonio?

Most repairs of an ordinary main break in San Antonio take half a day once the crew is on site. Bigger mains, deep bury and busy roads stretch that to a day or more. With 2,643,729 people on the system, a break on a main that feeds a whole district can leave thousands of homes dry at once, and crews may close valves several blocks away to isolate it.

For a break that affects many customers, San Antonio Water System (SAWS) usually posts an estimated restoration time. When you call, ask the dispatcher what the crew has told them.

Preparing for a long water outage in San Antonio

With about 2.7 people in the typical San Antonio home, FEMA's one-gallon-per-person-per-day rule means 8 gallons covers three days and 37 gallons covers two weeks.

• Heat: 87 days a year top 95°F here, so plan for more than the one-gallon minimum, and keep extra for pets.
• Your water heater tank holds 30 to 50 gallons of clean water. Turn off the power or gas to it first, then drain from the valve at the bottom.
• If a planned shutoff or storm is coming, fill the tub and some buckets for flushing toilets and washing; keep drinking water in clean sealed containers.

Water systems near San Antonio, side by side

Water outage pages for nearby cities

Austin, TX · Round Rock, TX · Corpus Christi, TX · Laredo, TX