Hundreds of San Antonio water customers woke up on July 11 to discover that their homes had little or no water pressure.
As soon as City Clerk Rick Alley became aware of the situation, he contacted the city’s public works director to look into the issue.
“I got a phone call at 4:08 a.m., on Thursday morning from a resident who said there was no (water) pressure,” Alley said.
As the day went on, San Antonio Mayor Mark B. Anderson began hearing from utilities’ customers expressing complaints about their water pressure.
Engineers found out that after a breaker had failed, one well pump did not turn on. A second well pump was working, but its valve didn’t open, preventing water from entering the city’s storage tank.
That presented a second potential problem: the possibility of debris in the water supply.
“Since there is less pressure in the pipes, there is a possibility that some contaminant could come back into the system,” Alley explained. “When the water is off for a while, when you lose pressure, it stirs up sediment in the pipes.”
Because of that possibility, the city issued boil water notices to residents, advising residents to boil their water before drinking or to use bottled water as an alternative.
Water pressure was restored to healthy levels on July 11, but studies showed that the pressure dropped again two days later.
An uninterruptible power supply back-up system has been installed to prevent similar incidents in the future.
The issue affected about 700 customers. As of July 17, the boiled water notice had been lifted.
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Published July 24, 2019
