Seadrift mayor declares local state of disaster

SEADRIFT — Seadrift Mayor Bill Cathey has declared a local state of disaster Wednesday, Oct. 15, as a result of  ongoing water outages in portions of the city.

In a livestreamed address, Cathey said that staff had been forced to periodically turn off the water supply over the past five days, resulting in approximately 100,000 gallons a day being lost. He also said that city crews have failed to identify the source of the leak. 

Cathey later formally issued the local state of disaster and shared that city staff have been in contact with the Office of the Texas Governor.

“The state has equipment and support teams that can help us find this leak, so we can restore some normalcy as soon as possible. Please bear with us as we continue to mitigate this issue as best we can,” Cathey said. “We will continue to provide updates through the city’s live stream as we are able.”

As a result of the meeting with state staff, the mayor emphasized that a plan has been created, which will soon take effect.  

Cathey said that state provided resources are enroute to Seadrift and are expected to arrive early Friday, Oct. 16. Once deployed, they will work with city staff and contractors to identify the location of the leak.

“Hopefully, we might even be able to get it done tomorrow, good Lord willing,” Cathey said.

A state of disaster had previously been declared within Seadrift in January 2025, due to lack of pressure within water lines. Cathey said that the city water plant has operated for more than 40 years and that lack of needed maintenance and upgrades have contributed to the disaster. However, he defended the declaration’s timing, claiming that city staff had handled leaks in the past. 

"We really felt that we could handle this by ourselves. We handle leaks all the time. One of the problems, I think, was because of the high tides we have. If that was the area with the leaks, it could be getting into the bayou and we [would] not be able to see it. We handle leaks — large leaks — in the past, every day, and if we could isolate the areas to exactly where the leak was, we could fix it,” Cathey said. 

As part of his declaration, Cathey also stated that citizens are to obey directions from police and emergency personnel and cooperate with officials for investigation, inspections and taking of samples.

For more information, visit www.seadrifttx.org.