Richmond Mayor and DPU Director address draft after-action report on water crisis

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- Richmond has released its draft after-action report on the January water crisis that affected hundreds of thousands of people.

Following the preliminary after-action report last month, the 30-page report, conducted by third-party investigator, HNTB, offers more insight into what occurred when a snowstorm caused a power outage and malfunction at the city's water treatment plant.

According to the draft, there were no electrical or instrumentation control staff members on hand despite having eight staff members working during the power outage. Additionally, there was no one qualified to switch to generator power during the outage.

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Department of Public Utilities (DPU) Director Scott Morris stated that the department is already addressing these staffing issues.

"What we'd like to do moving forward is look at a staffing schedule that is both adequate for somebody calling out and also preparing to do storm activities -- and also provides a little bit of flexibility for responsiveness," Morris said.

When it came to equipment, the plant was reportedly in winter mode, meaning only the main feeder was powering the entire facility. An electrician arrived early for their 6 a.m. shift to focus on manually transferring power from feeder one to feeder two, but they did not attempt to start the backup generators or switch to generator power during the outage.

Morris also addressed concerns about the reservoir, which was at half capacity due to a construction project.

"That's to preserve the capacity in the reservoir, so unfortunately it happened at the most critical time, so a little bit of the capacity was constrained," Morris explained.

The report also notes that the superintendent at the plant informed the then-DPU director, April Bingham, as well as staff from Chesterfield and Henrico counties, about the issues at 7 a.m. However, Hanover County was not notified until eight hours later.

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Mayor Danny Avula stated that the timeline of events felt appropriate to him, despite acknowledging that everyone would have preferred an earlier notification.

"I still think 9 a.m. was an appropriate time, but I think everybody would always say 'hey I'd love to hear something sooner,' but realistically with 7:30 a.m. -- about an hour and plus of problem solving and then a 9 a.m. notification -- it seems reasonable to me," Avula said.

The draft report also highlights that there was "little proactive action" taken to prepare for a possible power outage, despite state of emergency declarations from both Governor Glenn Youngkin and Mayor Avula.

The full after-action report is expected to be released no later than April 1st.