Crews continue work to restore Richmond's water supply

Top officials from across Richmond's various governmental departments gathered late into the night Monday at the city's central library, where an Emergency Operations Center was established to deal with the first major crisis of new Mayor Danny Avula's administration.

An initial 10 p.m. estimate to restore the city's water plant to service came and went, and just before midnight Avula announced he would be heading to the plant to support workers, with the next public update scheduled for 8 a.m.

(Update: As of 5:30 a.m. the plant remained offline.)

"I want you to know that the dedicated staff at the Department of Public Utilities is working tirelessly to restore operations at the City’s water plant, which were interrupted earlier Monday due to a power outage caused by the winter weather," Avula wrote in an emailed statement.

Once the plant returns to operation, it will begin pumping water to the city's Byrd Park reservoir, and water pressure will gradually return across the city. That will also start the clock on a 16-hour testing period mandated by the Virginia Department of Health before a water boil advisory can be lifted.

What happened?

At a Monday evening press conference, Department of Public Utilities Director April Bingham said her group was focused on restoring water service to the city.

"We've been working on recovery all day," she said. "Root cause analysis has not been one of the things that I've been focused on today."

When the power outage took place Monday morning, emergency generators kicked in. However, the city said that an issue with the backup power supply allowed water to flood into a portion of the treatment process it described as the "filter gallery," halting clean water production.

Dominion said it fully restored power to the facility at 9:39 a.m., giving it a priority designation.

Shortly after, Henrico and Chesterfield counties disconnected from the plant's water supply, in an attempt to preserve as much as possible for city customers.

Avula said over the next five hours, staff was hopeful the existing water supply would be sufficient while systems were brought back online, but it became apparent that would not be the case.

“We were trying to determine just how much time we had before we would experience a reduction in water outflow," the mayor said.

“It wasn’t until early in the afternoon when we realized, OK, the water in the reservoir is dropping more quickly than we expected it to, and so this is going to have real impacts. And so we need to issue the conservation and boil water advisory.”

At 2:30 p.m., residents in The Fan began to notice a decrease in water pressure, which trickled outward across the city.

At 4:26 p.m., the city issued an immediate boil water advisory, with a request to limit water usage.

A city spokesperson said all water consumed before the notice was "safe and clean." Low water pressure can lead to bacteria in the water, though Avula said that was "very unlikely," and the advisory was issued out of an abundance of caution.

Asked why residents weren't notified of the potential issue earlier, Avula cited a desire to understand the situation.

"So much of what we communicate to the public not only is, 'Do we have all the details?' and 'Do we want to make sure that we're giving clear direction to the public?' but we also have regional partners that we need to coordinate with," he said.

"I wanted to be able to give really clear and direct information so that people who are served by the City of Richmond know that they're impacted, but our county partners, who are able to pull water in from other sources, were able to maintain pressures and aren't at risk. So a lot of it was just coordinating among all the bodies."

Businesses, hospitals impacted

An additional blast of snow Monday night caused Richmond schools and government offices to close on Tuesday, while other local business said they'd be unable to open until water is restored.

Ellyn Hopper, who owns the Fat Rabbit Bakery, wrote a note of frustration to customers.

"This issue is (obviously) affecting businesses across the entirety of the city, causing hundreds of small businesses to lose at least a day’s worth of revenue," she wrote.

At VCU Health, all elective surgical procedures scheduled for Tuesday were postponed.

Avula said the city is setting up a “points of dispensation” plan to distribute water, focusing initially on vulnerable populations. The Richmond Fire Department has backup tanks available and is working with neighboring counties to access additional supplies as needed.

What's next?

The city said that once the water supply is restored, residents can resume non-drinking water uses like bathing and flushing.

If crews are successful in bringing the plant back online overnight, that could be as soon as Tuesday morning, though no timetable was immediately available.

This is the first boil water advisory in the city since 2003, when operations were disrupted by Hurricane Isabel.