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Richmond restores water after treatment-plant failure; mayor orders independent after-action review and seeds relief fund
Summary
Richmond Mayor Danny Avila told City Council that a Jan. 6 power outage and a failed switchgear caused SCADA controls to go offline and flooded pumps and filters at the city's water-treatment plant, prompting a boil-water advisory; the plant was repaired, tests returned negative bacteria results, and the advisory was lifted after two rounds of testing.
Richmond Mayor Danny Avila told City Council on Jan. 13 that a power outage in the early hours of Monday, Jan. 6 caused a switchgear failure and a SCADA software crash that left key valves open, allowing water to flood pumps and filters at the city's treatment plant and temporarily halting production.
Avila said an electrician manually switched the plant to a secondary power feed within about an hour to 90 minutes and crews began dewatering and disassembling submerged machinery. The city launched its emergency operations center, brought in regional contractors and software experts, installed bypass pumps and a backup battery for the control system, and conducted visual inspections and hourly on-site checks.
"When the software came back up it did not connect to our servers," Avila said, describing multi-hour interruptions in supervisory controls that he said required outside network experts. He said the SCADA connection was restored shortly after midnight and work continued to bring pumps and filters back online.
Avila said the…
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