Hagerty presents after-action report on January water crisis; consultants recommend integrated preparedness plan

Stephen Willoughby, director of emergency communications, preparedness and response, introduced Hagerty Consulting's independent incident response assessment of the city's January water crisis and asked Hagerty to present its findings and recommendations to the Organizational Development Standing Committee.

Eimar Marino Mazza of Hagerty said the firm engaged about 88 stakeholders, conducted 57 interviews and performed a document review to ground the report in federal emergency-management guidance. "The ultimate purpose of this report was, 1, to capture the city's experience, but more than that is to look forward," Marino Mazza said.

Hagerty said the report aligns findings to FEMA core capabilities and contains roughly 72–74 targeted recommendations intended to improve preparedness and response over time. The consultants emphasized that the recommendations are not a short-term checklist but a multi-year work plan the city should prioritize and scope against evolving needs.

Key themes Hagerty highlighted included:

- Planning: In-the-moment planning was a strength; pre-disaster planning and mandatory training for key roles need improvement. Marino Mazza recommended updating the emergency operations plan and the point-of-distribution and crisis-communications plans and instituting mandatory training and exercises.

- Operational coordination: Internal teams executed tasks well but cross-team coordination, defined command structure and preplanned staffing shifts need clearer, pre-event definition.

- Situational assessment: Early gaps existed in information arriving from the treatment plant; the EOC later filled that gap by sending liaisons. Hagerty said pod sites and external partners sometimes lacked the information needed to perform assigned tasks and recommended structured reporting mechanisms.

- Public information and warning: When accurate restoration timelines were available the city communicated transparently; Hagerty recommended a joint information center for coordinated regional messaging and embedding messaging templates in a crisis-communications plan. Hagerty noted Richmond has already implemented and tested a new notification system.

- Logistics and supply chain: The city established water distribution pods and a homebound delivery service but lacked predefined pod plans, staffing rosters and logistical exercises; Hagerty recommended developing a resource management plan and exercising it.

- Economic recovery and long-term vulnerabilities: The city established cost-tracking mechanisms and a recovery framework; Hagerty recommended continued attention to regional interdependencies and infrastructure vulnerabilities.

Hagerty consultants said some recommended changes are already in progress: the emergency-notification system has been implemented and the city has developed a citywide recovery framework. The consultants recommended creating an integrated preparedness plan to serve as a framework for other plans and training, and they proposed a timeline for exercises and updates.

Committee members asked questions about outreach, the scope of stakeholders contacted, cost recovery and next steps. Council Member Lynch asked whether Hagerty interviewed council members; Hagerty said council members and representatives were contacted and that two council members or representatives participated in interviews. Lynch and others asked whether Hagerty curated a fixed “phone tree” for stakeholders; Marino Mazza said Hagerty recommended the city build a crisis-communications plan that would include a stakeholder contact list tailored to future incidents rather than a single fixed list.

Council Member Gibson and others asked about the new emergency-notification platform (referred to by staff as Richmond Ready, using the Everbridge product). Willoughby and Hagerty said Richmond Ready has been tested and that the city also has access to the Wireless Emergency Alerts/Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS/WEA) for broader reach; staff said policy changes now require WEA use for future boil-water advisories.

On cost issues, council members asked for a breakdown of consultant costs and which expenses might be eligible for state or federal reimbursement. Willoughby said the city began cost-recovery discussions with state partners but that insurance coverage and federal/state thresholds complicated eligibility; he said staff would provide more detailed departmental breakdowns.

Willoughby described next steps for implementation: Hagerty's recommendations will be posted on the city's website and the Office of Emergency Management will treat the report as a work plan. He said the city intends to begin the integrated preparedness-plan process in the next 30 days and to initiate updates to the emergency operations plan within 60 to 90 days.

Ending

Willoughby said the office will publish a tracker showing progress on recommendations and invited the committee to set a reporting cadence for follow-up; committee members indicated they want periodic updates as the work proceeds.