http://droughtreporter.unl.edu/

v 2.4.3.0

The water angel, Donna Johnson, continues to bring water to her neighbors in East Porterville where roughly 700 families do not have running water. The Fresno Bee (Calif.), July 24, 2015 Donna Johnson, a 72-year old woman living in East Porterville, had been without running water for four months, when it occurred to her in July to count the number of wells in town that were no longer producing water. She was determined to bring people water as long as she’d made the journey to check whether they had any. The local newspaper, The Porterville Recorder, gave out her phone number and address in an article describing her efforts to assess the problem of dry wells in the community. She was deluged with bottled water to share with those in need and very busy with phone calls from neighbors needing water. A teenager who used to live nearby came to assist her with her endeavor. Eventually, word of the dire situation got out, and it was discovered that nearly 1,000 people of the 7,300 residents of East Porterville did not have running water. Nonprofit agencies stepped in to coordinate donations, grants and water deliveries, but Mrs. Johnson continued to seek out people who needed water because she knew that some of them wouldn’t get the help they needed otherwise. Los Angeles Times, Sept. 18, 2014