KILLIAN - Killian officials handed out water Tuesday night after the Livingston Parish President's Office declared a state of emergency for the village due to a water system failure. 

The declaration of emergency says immediate assistance of the state is requested to minimize the effects of a disaster event. According to the document, the water system failed Monday. Residents said they woke up to discolored water, which seemed unusable. 

Livingston Parish Councilmember Dean Coates said the bad water ran through the village lines Tuesday. 

"It appears we’ve got dirty water starting on the west side of the parish, moving through the central side and over to the west side now," Coates said. "The water looks like – I don’t think you’d want to drink it."

Resident Jathryn Buchannan said she didn't drink the village's water before the crisis Tuesday. 

"I don't even let my dog drink our water," she said. 

Buchanan said based on her previous experiences, she believes that Killian's water problems will not be fixed soon. 

"I don’t quite know what it is, but it takes a while to find the breakage a lot of the time. So by the time they find it we’ve already been having really gross and contaminated water for a while. Then they have to shut it down, fix the issue, then flush it out."

In 2023, Killian received one of the state's lowest scores on the drinking water grading system. The parish says they are working to fix the issue. Parish President Randy Delatte will be meeting with Governor Jeff Landry on Wednesday to sign the declaration and make the state of emergency official.