Posted on April 03, 2025
Independent investigation provides detailed analysis and recommendations to prevent future water service disruptions
Richmond, VA – The City of Richmond is releasing the final After-Action Assessment report from HNTB, the independent firm investigating the January water crisis that affected residents and businesses across the region. This in-depth assessment is the final of HNTB's findings, following preliminary and draft reports, released on February 14th and March 3rd, respectively.
The assessment builds upon earlier findings, offering additional insights into the root causes of the water outage and a review of the City's response. It expands upon earlier short- and long-term recommendations—several of which have already been implemented—with robust and concrete measures which the City can implement to better respond to and prevent future crises.
"I want to thank HNTB for their thorough investigation and comprehensive report," said Mayor Danny Avula. "We are committed to taking the necessary steps to ensure that something like this doesn't happen again, and I'm grateful that the recommendations provided in this final assessment will put us on the right path. I have been working closely with our Director of Public Utilities, Dr. Morris, and across City government, to enact a number of these changes as quickly as possible. Resiliency in the delivery of critical services to Richmonders and the surrounding communities is a top priority for this government."
Key Findings
The final report confirms findings delivered in earlier versions, namely that the Jan. 6 incident began with a total loss of power at the City's water treatment plant during a winter storm. The outage and resulting service disruption were compounded by two critical factors:
- The water treatment plant was operating in "Winter Mode," which relied on a single critical component instead of the more resilient "Summer Mode," which had redundant components.
- When the main power feed failed, an automatic transfer switch (called a "Bus Tie") failed to activate, preventing power from switching to the second available power source.
This combination of factors led to a loss of power at the plant for approximately 80 minutes, which led to water flooding the plant's basement and damage to essential electrical equipment that resulted in the service disruption.
In addition to a thorough review of the root causes, the report goes on to analyze the City's response and highlights underlying factors which contributed to the Jan. 6 service disruption, including inadequate staffing and training, a lack of comprehensive standard operating procedures, and deficiencies in internal and external crisis communications, among others.
Recommendations and Immediate Actions Already Taken
HNTB provided a number of short- (3-6 month) and long-term (multi-year) recommendations to mitigate the impacts of future crisis events. Under the leadership of Director Morris, the City has already implemented several key recommendations:
- The water treatment plant now permanently operates in "Summer Mode" with dual power feeds, eliminating the single point of power failure that contributed to the January incident.
- New emergency response protocols have been established for inclement weather events.
- Staffing standards have been upgraded, particularly for critical operations, electrical, and engineering positions during potential emergency situations.
- Emergency communications protocols are under review and will be updated to ensure consistent, clear, and accurate communications.
- Inspection protocols for equipment, fuel, chemicals, and systems have been strengthened.
- Approximately $5 million has been invested in critical plant repairs and upgrades.
These improvements have already shown positive results, with the plant successfully maintaining operations through several subsequent winter and spring storms without service disruptions.
Next Steps
The City will continue to implement recommendations outlined in the HNTB assessment, including improvements to backup power systems, valve controls, communication protocols, emergency operations, and staff training.
In addition to the HNTB assessment, the City is awaiting a separate assessment from Hagerty Consulting, an Illinois-based independent emergency management consulting firm tasked with reviewing and making recommendations to the City's incident response procedures. That report will be made available to the public, once completed.
The City remains committed to full transparency throughout this process and to implementing the necessary improvements to ensure resilient water service for residents.
