{"id":773919,"date":"2026-07-20T13:32:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T13:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/773919\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T13:32:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T13:32:18","slug":"a-virginia-familys-well-ran-dry-during-the-drought-heres-how-they-got-through-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/773919\/","title":{"rendered":"A Virginia family’s well ran dry during the drought; here’s how they got through it"},"content":{"rendered":"

APPOMATTOX COUNTY, Va. (WSET) \u2014 You don’t always think about running water until it isn’t there.<\/p>\n

For Justin Graves, that realization came the moment he turned on the faucet one morning and got nothing but air.<\/p>\n

“You definitely don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone,” Graves said.<\/p>\n

That sound marked the beginning of a month without running water for Graves, his wife, Heather, and their four children at their home in Gladstone.<\/p>\n

“It blew out air. That was it,” he said.<\/p>\n

With no water coming from their underground well, the family had to figure out a new routine almost overnight.<\/p>\n

“We basically had to fill up jugs at my neighbor’s house or at my wife’s job to take baths or wash clothes or anything like that,” Graves said.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO: City warns small cutbacks now could protect Lynchburg\u2019s water supply if drought persists<\/a><\/p>\n

While hauling water became part of daily life, Graves said the bigger concern was what it meant for their home.<\/p>\n

“If the well dries up, we won’t have any water for the house. The house is no longer livable,” he said.<\/p>\n

Not knowing exactly what had gone wrong, the family called Bedrock Well Pump and Mechanical Services for help.<\/p>\n

Co-owner Donald Burnette said the drought had caused the water level in the family’s well to drop below the pump.<\/p>\n

“The water level in the well had dropped below the pump, and the pump had burned up,” Burnette said.<\/p>\n

He said the Graves family isn’t alone.<\/p>\n

“This whole area has very deep wells, and because of the drought, the water levels have diminished to almost nothing,” Burnette said.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO: Protesters rally in Botetourt County over concerns about Google’s proposed data center<\/a><\/p>\n

According to Burnette, the water level in the Graves’ well had fallen by more than 200 feet.<\/p>\n

To get the water flowing again, crews replaced the burned-out pump and used pressurized water to reopen the underground water veins so the well could refill more quickly.<\/p>\n

Burnette said it’s one of the worst drought-related impacts he’s seen.<\/p>\n

“This is probably the worst I’ve seen it,” he said. “We’ve been in this drought for a while, and most people didn’t start realizing it until the last three or four months.”<\/p>\n

Now that water is flowing again, the Graves family isn’t taking it for granted.<\/p>\n

They keep extra jugs of water on hand and drink bottled water to help preserve the well.<\/p>\n

And after a month without running water, Justin Graves knew exactly what he wanted first.<\/p>\n

“Let me tell you,” he said with a laugh. “I got the first shower, and it was great. It was great. It was great.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"APPOMATTOX COUNTY, Va. (WSET) \u2014 You don’t always think about running water until it isn’t there. For Justin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":773920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-773919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}