Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner cautioned folks Monday towards evaluating town’s present boil-water order to final 12 months’s “February freeze,” when the state’s electrical energy grid collapsed and 246 folks died.
Though each had been brought on by energy outages — the boil order when an outage Sunday at a water purification plant triggered water stress to drop, triggering issues of attainable contamination — that is the place the similarities finish, he mentioned.
“The February freeze is a completely kind of totally different matter,” Turner mentioned throughout a information convention. “You misplaced energy and water and issues remained down for a number of days, OK? For a number of days.”
Turner shared a timeline of occasions that led to the boil water discover and mentioned state legislation requires a metropolis to inform the general public inside 24 hours from the time of the incident — a requirement he mentioned town had met. The order prompted officers to shut public faculties for at the least someday. Turner was joined on the information convention Monday by Carol Haddock, the director of Houston Public Works.
In keeping with Turner, two transformers failed, inflicting energy outages on the East Water Purification Plant, which he mentioned offers water for a lot of Houston’s 2.2 million residents. There was no indication the water system had been contaminated, he mentioned.
Water high quality testing was underway, and the discover could be lifted by Tuesday morning on the newest, he mentioned. The East Water Purification Plant is exterior town, in Galena Park.
On Sunday morning, 16 sensors marked dips beneath the minimal stress ranges of 20 psi, or kilos per sq. inch, required by the Texas Fee on Environmental High quality. Fourteen sensors marked dips for less than 2 minutes and two for almost half-hour, Turner mentioned.
Energy was restored to the plant by 12:30 p.m., he mentioned. If contamination occurred when the stress dipped, it would nonetheless be touring by means of the system, which is why the boil discover remained in impact regardless of passable stress, he mentioned.
The town issued the boil water discover in an “abundance of warning” after the primary transformer and its backup failed, Turner mentioned. Even when turbines had been turned on, the issue would nonetheless have occurred, he mentioned.
“Now, I’ve instructed Public Works to do an general evaluation of our system, a diagnostic evaluation, to see how we stop this from taking place once more,” Turner mentioned.
He mentioned conversations between town and the Texas Fee on Environmental High quality occurred from 2:43 p.m. to six:40 p.m., and that someday between 6 p.m. and 6:40 p.m. a call was made {that a} boil water discover wanted to be issued. The discover was despatched to the general public at 6:44 p.m., Turner mentioned.
When requested why residents of the nation’s fourth-largest metropolis hadn’t been notified sooner, Turner mentioned, “That is why now we have a course of in place.”
“What I can say to folks is that this was a scenario that was not being ignored, ignored,” Turner mentioned.
