Most of West Texas has been dealing with a serious drought, but the town of Robert Lee has been hit extremely hard.

John Jacobs, mayor of Robert Lee, said last year the drought was so bad that it dried up wells, rivers and reservoirs. The town is still dealing with the effects from that drought.

And this year, the mayor said, hasn't been much better.

"A drought - it sneaks up on you. You have 3,4,5 years with no significant rainfall and then all a sudden you wake up and 'hey, we're out of water,'" Jacobs said.

The mayor said the river had gotten so low on water that residents could no longer drink their tap water. Instead, they had to rely on bottled water from San Angelo because the river water was too concentrated with minerals.

"It turned into just nearly like seawater. Even treating it with whatever means we had, it still had a salty taste to it," Jacobs said.

The mayor had to come up with a quick solution. So about six months ago the city decided to build an emergency water pipeline from Bronte to Robert Lee.

On May 22 the pipe started carrying water into town and the mayor said he could finally sleep at night.

And even though Bronte has agreed to sell about 200,000 gallons of water a day to Robert Lee, Jones warns residents to use water conservatively.

"We're not gonna be able to fill our swimming pools and have green yards, but we have drinkable, very good water and we're out of a bind," the mayor said.