Imagine a town with no water

[Mortblanc]

One will also find that this is an area that has artificially sustained its population for decades.

In the preindustrial era that geographic area never sustained a population other than nomadic tribes chasing starving buffalo herds. It was not considered habitable until deep drilling and windmills brought water to the surface in the late 1800s. The same technology that brought deep oil reserves to the surface were used to bring deep water to the surface.

There are places that should not be expected to support human population naturally and when the technology that does allow population to exist no longer functions it is time for that population to move to another place.

West Texas is a desert region. When one attempts to operate a town/farm/ranch in a desert, during DROUGHT, the water supply is going to fail!

And this is not the first time!

During the 1930s this was the heart of what we called the "dust bowl". Millions migrated to other areas due to the drought that occurred during that decade. When the technology developed to allow the extraction of water from deep aquifers (800 ft) The population began "recovering" to an artificial level.

The local government has been shouting for attention and warning that the water supply was failing in this area since the mid 1980s, long before "fracking" was an issue.

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That interview is a good example of the answer to the question "When is it time to bug out?"