Texts show DPU officials believed backup generators were on during early hours of water crisis

Several text messages sent as Richmond’s water treatment plant was failing show the Department of Public Utilities believed the backup power generators at the plant were on, even though Mayor Danny Avula later said the generators were never used.

“Counties have been notified. Generators are on. We will need some time to assess and continue to respond,” Doug Towne, the water plant superintendent, said in a text sent at 7:09 a.m. on Jan. 6, in the beginning stages of the water crisis that would leave the city without drinkable water for most of that week.

When a Chesterfield County official reached out to former DPU Director April Bingham around 7:30 a.m. to ask if the city needed any assistance getting Dominion Energy to prioritize power issues at the plant, Bingham told him: “Electricians are onsite at the plant. Backup generators are on.”

Those messages — included in a trove of communication records The Richmonder obtained Thursday evening through a Freedom of Information Act request — are at odds with Avula’s more recent explanation of what happened with the generators. 

The mayor has said the generators weren’t turned on after an electrician determined they were unnecessary. The electrician, Avula said, was able to switch the plant over to a secondary source of Dominion power.

It wasn’t immediately clear why DPU officials reported the generators were on as the crisis began. City officials didn’t respond to follow-up questions Thursday night on the generator confusion and other issues related to the records they released. Had the backup generators been used on the morning of Jan. 6, the plant may not have suffered the power interruption that triggered major flooding and broader equipment failures.

The records obtained under FOIA reveal new behind-the-scenes detail of a chaotic day, but they don’t paint a full picture. Some portions of the emails and text messages dealing with the water plant’s specific operations were redacted. The city also said it was declining to release 22 emails by invoking FOIA exemptions that deal with mayoral working papers and attorney-client privilege.

On Jan. 13, The Richmonder requested all email and text communications from Jan. 6  sent to or from Avula, Bingham and Towne.

The records the city provided show Avula and his communications team seemed unaware of the gravity of the situation until later in the day, carrying on with regular business as DPU officials were assessing the developing emergency at the water plant. Bingham raised the possibility of a “boil water alert” in a text message sent at 11:51 a.m., but said she was hoping it could be avoided if the city could restore water production and refill the Byrd Park reservoir.  The boil water advisory didn’t go out until around 4:30 p.m.

That release said a snow-induced power loss caused the water system to “temporarily malfunction.” Several hours earlier, Bingham had told other city officials both sides of the plant were “underwater.”

Multiple city officials noticed that talk of water problems was spreading on social media that afternoon and inquired internally about the situation.

“Just in case you haven’t heard already, there are lots of rumors spreading about water issues, including that people need to boil water,” Megan Field, a senior policy advisor for the city, said in a 4:32 p.m. text message to Bingham. “It’s probably time to put on official information if you all aren’t already thinking about it.”

‘Losing confidence in our SCADA contractor’

The records released under FOIA show the city struggled all day to get the plant’s IT system — known as SCADA  — working again. That system automates many of the plant’s functions and provides operators with critical information and status updates.

At 8:30 p.m., Bingham told a high-ranking city official she had reached out to neighboring counties “to see if they know of anyone that can help us with SCADA.”

“I’m losing confidence in our SCADA contractor,” she texted interim Chief Administrative Officer Sabrina Joy-Hogg.

“Oh gosh,” Joy-Hogg replied.

At 10:52 p.m., Bingham told Joy-Hogg there was still “no progress with SCADA yet.”

Officials received several offers of outside assistance.

That evening, state official John Littel — the former health secretary who now serves as Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s chief of staff — told Avula that Youngkin was calling “the chairman of GE” after Avula said it appeared the city’s SCADA software was made by a GE subsidiary called GE Vernova.

Littel then told Avula that Youngkin was speaking with the head of GE Vernova and said “GE is reaching out to April.”

Dominion also offered assistance with the SCADA troubles. Company executive Carlos Brown reached out to Avula offering Dominion’s knowledge of SCADA systems, saying “this may be a plant controls issue similar to what we use in power plants.”

‘Dominion related?’

Earlier in the day, the prevailing theory among DPU officials seemed to be that the problems arose on Dominion’s side. Around 8 a.m., officials noted power at the plant had been restored.

“Dominion related?” Bingham asked in the text thread.

“Unsure at the moment,” replied DPU official Kenny Weeks.

Towne, the plant superintendent, then chimed in with his assessment of what went wrong.

“Appears to be plant switch gear related,” he said, referring to the equipment that’s supposed to automatically switch the facility from the main source of Dominion power to a secondary source of Dominion power.

About 10 minutes later, he followed up with what seemed to be a clarification of his earlier message. What he said is unclear, because the city redacted the second message before releasing it to The Richmonder. City officials said they redacted some information under a transparency exemption that protects information that would “jeopardize the safety or security” of a government facility.

Whatever Towne said, Bingham’s assessment appeared unchanged.

“So dominion related?” she asked again.

“That’s where it originated,” Towne said.

Avula has said the switch equipment failure was on the city’s side, not Dominion’s side.

The records show Dominion CEO Bob Blue asked Avula to call him on the evening of Jan. 6. 

As DPU officials were trying to understand what was happening at the plant, Avula and his aides seemed to be proceeding with the regular business of a brand-new mayor.

Ross Catrow, the city’s interim director for the Office of Strategic Communications, and Julian Walker, Avula’s interim press secretary and policy advisor, were texting with Avula about a snowstorm-related content that would be posted on social media.

Via email, Avula and his team were discussing an upcoming meeting with state Del. Delores McQuinn, D-Richmond, about the Richmond Slave Trail, as well as a request from the City Council to fast-track renovations to council office space at City Hall. Avula and Catrow also deliberated over a standard email signature for the new leadership team.

Avula’s team was more clued in to the water situation as afternoon arrived.

Around 3 p.m., the mayor texted someone who appears to be a state health official to ask if the state could help “help mass communicate to the restaurant community.”

As the day went on, he began to receive supportive text messages from people wishing him well as he was thrust into his first municipal crisis as mayor. Henrico County Manager John Vithoulkas and Chesterfield County Manager Joe Casey both contacted the mayor to discuss setting up a regional incident management team to get a better handle on the situation.

A little after 10 p.m. that night, Avula received a text from former Mayor Levar Stoney.

“I know it has been a long day. Hang in there,” Stoney told the successor he had just handed the mayor’s office to. “Let me know if I can be of any help.”

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