ROBERT LEE, Texas — Ranchers in pickup trucks here stop to ladle up puddles of street water after underground pipes crack, and wilting trees are quenched with dirty bathwater hauled from tubs to front yards. An April storm teased Robert Lee, but instead of rain, a lightning strike started a wildfire that chewed up 169,000 drought-starved acres.
"We can't catch a break," said Eddie Ray Roberts, the city's water superintendent.
The worst Texas drought since the 1950s has this ranching town of nearly 1,110 residents, and a handful of other cities, facing a prospect they've never encountered before: running out of water. One city outside Dallas, Kemp, already experienced a dress rehearsal this month when every faucet was shut off for two days to fix pipes bursting in the shifting and hardening soil.
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