Source: Grist

Tom Bailey had just finished his morning routine of checking the town’s three water well sites when he got a call from a resident: Water was coming out of the road.

Bailey, public works director for this small, East Texas town, hopped in his pickup truck and drove to the scene on a bumpy road that sits behind the high school.

The entire road was wet.

“Water was just boiling up in the middle of the road,” Bailey said. “Not normal. Not normal at all.”

As water continued to flow down the street, Bailey and Cody Day, a water operator who works under Bailey, jumped back in the truck and drove into town to pick up a mini excavator from storage. They returned and dug into the ground to find the water source: a leaking pipe.

Read more: Texas’ water infrastructure is broken, jeopardizing quality and supply for a growing state.