Richmond officials outline water outage response, hire forensic and emergency consultants

The Governmental Operations Standing Committee heard updates on the city's response to the recent water outage and the administration's plan for a multi-pronged after-action review and recovery effort.

Megan Field, senior policy adviser to Acting Chief Administrative Officer Sabrina Joy Hogg, told the committee the city had signed a contract with consultants "as of about 4 o'clock yesterday" to produce an after-action report and would rely on other specialists for emergency-management review and community support. "This was an all hands on deck moment and continues to be," Field said.

Scott Morris, interim director of the Department of Public Utilities, said the water treatment plant has been stabilized and the system is meeting current demand. "The water quality is safe to drink," Morris said. He added that repairs remaining at the plant are incremental — for example, pulling and refurbishing pumps and motors — and that the city is sequencing work to address the most critical needs first.

Consulting firms will perform two separate reviews: an independent forensic review of the plant's operational failure led by HNTB and an emergency-response assessment and recovery plan led by Hagerty Consulting. Jason Hoff, a HNTB project lead, said HNTB began desktop research immediately, expects to have "boots on the ground" at the facility the Monday after the committee meeting, and plans to present preliminary findings within the first two weeks of field work.

Stephen Willoughby, director of emergency communications, preparedness and response, said he engaged Hagerty to assess how the city handled the incident and to recommend improvements to planning, training and communication processes. "This assessment will ... identify the strengths that we want to maintain and build upon, but also identify potential areas of improvement," Willoughby said. He told the committee Hagerty will help scope a post-disaster recovery plan and assist with identifying federal and state reimbursement and other assistance programs.

Willoughby also said the city had identified shortcomings in its mass-notification system and has accelerated deployment of a replacement platform; that platform supports IPAWS (the federal integrated public alert and warning system) and can push geotargeted alerts to all cell phones in a defined area. He said the cost for the emergency-management engagement is in the neighborhood of $400,000.

Committee members pressed administration for budget detail on emergency purchases and for copies of consultant scopes of work and contracts. Morris and Field said many costs remain under review and pledged to provide more-detailed budget and contracting information in the coming weeks; Morris said he was still conducting an agencywide review of asset lists, cost centers and the capital-improvement program before making definitive budget requests.

Several council members and the committee emphasized the need for transparency in the consultants' scopes and public release of relevant contract terms. Committee members also asked that reporting be organized across committees: Governmental Operations to continue updates about the water treatment plant and departmental operations; Public Safety to cover emergency management and the emergency-response review; and Health and Human Services to address relief for affected residents and businesses.

What the committee did not vote on at the meeting was any change to DPU management or the contractor engagements; the consultants and internal staff are continuing work while administration compiles requested documents and timelines for future briefings.

Provenance: first statements on the subject came when Megan Field introduced the administration's update and announced the contract signing; the HNTB and Hagerty presenters and DPU director remarks concluded the committee's discussion.