Youngkin says anger over Richmond water crisis is ‘justified’

As Richmond’s water outages disrupted the first day of Virginia’s General Assembly session, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said Wednesday that anger people are feeling over the situation is “justified.”

“The situation with interruption of Richmond’s water supply and the crisis that has ensued I know has caused substantial anger and frustration with so many people here in the city,” the governor told reporters at the state Capitol. “And it’s justified. I know that folks are tired and they’re ready to get back to normal.”

Youngkin said the state has made “extensive” efforts to collaborate with Mayor Danny Avula — who previously served in Youngkin’s administration as commissioner of the Virginia Department of Social Services — and other leaders in the Richmond region.

“We learned about the outage on Monday afternoon and immediately went to work in order to mobilize water supplies,” Youngkin said. 

In addition to helping provide pallets of water for distribution in the area, the governor said, the state has put a particular emphasis on bringing in nearly two dozen water tankers to ensure local hospitals don’t run dry.

“The hospitals around the city were really worried that they might have to start diverting patients,” he said.

When asked whether the situation should lead the state to revisit funding for aging municipal infrastructure, Youngkin said conversations about solutions are already occurring. But first, he said, policymakers need a fuller picture of what happened.

“I do think that there are a multitude of factors that contributed to this,” the governor said. “But we need to step back and make sure we understand it thoroughly.”