‘Please take this warning seriously!’: Bennet under water emergency

BENNET, Neb. (KLKN) — The City of Bennet issued an urgent warning Wednesday saying the water tower could run dry.

“Please take this warning seriously!” the city said on Facebook.

The town of just over 1,000 people is now under a water emergency.

People are supposed to shut off their sprinklers and eliminate all unnecessary water usage.

Residents said this is a reoccurring problem every year.

“I wasn’t really surprised because our town has been on water restrictions every summer,” said Brittany Draeger, a mom of six.

She worries that the water shortages will only get worse as the town grows.

The Lancaster Rural Water District said one of its pumping stations had an electronic drive failure.

“The District’s Electrical Contractor is currently working to make necessary repairs,” it said in a statement.

For Lindsay Ulner, another local mom, the idea of running out of water is unsettling.

“It would affect day-to-day life,” she said.

Both women said the city needs to come up with a permanent solution to avoid water restrictions in the future.

“I think for daily life it would maybe mean making sure that my loads of laundry are, like, completely full or maybe not washing things as often, like bedding and stuff,” Ulner said. “And we would probably look at outsourcing drinking water and having to buy that from the store.”