No one seems to know how worms got in the tap water, but residents in Old River-Winfree, a town of about 1,400 just 25 miles east of Houston, are drinking from bottles this week.

On Monday evening, the first residents of the Woodlands Acres Subdivision showed up at city offices with containers full of water and small red worms they say came out of their faucets, sprinklers and shower heads. Three days and dozens of reports later, Mayor Joe Landry said “people are not taking chances.”

Landry’s office has been using city money to buy bottled water to hand out to residents. When he spoke by phone with the Chronicle, he had just returned from the nearby Dollar General to restock on the water supply that was going quickly. They’ve handed out at least a thousand bottles he said, and they’d have to buy a pallet this afternoon to keep up with demand.