Richmond officials outline after‑action review, consultants engaged as water plant repairs continue

Megan Field, senior policy adviser to the acting chief administrative officer, told the Governmental Operations Standing Committee on Jan. 13 that the administration has contracted an outside firm to produce an after‑action report on the recent water outage and that the city has also retained emergency‑management consultants to assess response and recovery needs.

Field said a contract with consultants was signed “as of about 4 o’clock yesterday,” and named HNTB as the firm under contract to perform the forensic review of what happened at the treatment plant. She said the administration has also engaged Hagerty Consulting to augment the city’s emergency management team and to develop a post‑disaster recovery plan and communications assessment.

The review and recovery effort are intended to serve separate purposes: HNTB will focus on a technical reconstruction of the plant failure and related operating practices, while Hagerty will assess the city’s emergency operations, communications with elected officials and the public, and help identify state and federal reimbursement opportunities. Jason Hoff of HNTB told the…