PAWHUSKA, Okla. — A Pawhuska woman says her rural water supply has been shut off dozens of times, leaving her family without running water for days at a stretch.
Manon Taylor moved to rural Pawhuska on County Road 4297 to escape the chaos of city life, but she says water outages from Rural Water District 21 have made life complicated.
WATCH: 'I WANT ANSWERS': Pawhuska resident frustrated with lack of rural water supply
"31 times that I could find between my text messages and their Facebook page, we were out of water. And then in 2025 and already, in 2026, we've been out 12 days," Taylor said.
Without running water, Taylor's family hauls five-gallon jugs for the restroom and travels into town to shower or do laundry.
"We'll go to town, you know, with family, or we'll get a B&B or whatever and go take a shower, it's just, it's so inconvenient and your laundry piles up, so my husband takes it into the laundromat, and we dry it at home. We just survive," Taylor said.
Taylor discovered that the water tower and water lines are at least 45 years old and believes the problems should have been fixed years ago.
"The source isn't good. They need to move it and make improvements," Taylor said.
2 News contacted District 21's board president, Jill Gray, who said the recent 12-day outage was caused by difficulty locating a main break, with water and mud seeping back into the line.
Gray says that, after speaking with the field operator, there have been no major outages in the past 11 months. She also says Rural Water District Number One's water tower and the waterlines to Rural District Water 21 are not the cause of any water outages.
Gray says the city is now planning an emergency waterline and will share details once finalized.
For Taylor, the goal is simple.
"I want answers and solutions. That's not an unreasonable request," Taylor said.
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