Area affected by D.C. boil water order significantly reduced

That finding emerged as D.C.Water officials on Saturday significantly shrank the area of the city under a boil water order, reducing the impact to about 20,000 residents in five Northeast Washington neighborhoods — University Heights, Michigan Park, North Michigan Park, Queens Chapel and parts of Brookland.
But even as the boil water order was lifted for most of the city, information from the water utility was scattered, confusing and, in some cases, delayed – stoking anger among residents who complained that officials botched the job of conveying something as vital as the safety of drinking water.
The open valve led to a severe drop in water pressure, which was restored in one hour and six minutes.
A boil water order was issued at 4:30 a.m., first on Twitter, then on a series of robocalls, some of which took up to eight hours to go through.
The robocalls D.C. Water sent were limited to its 34,000 customers in the impact area – but the agency only had 22,000 working telephone numbers, Gadis said.
The system can only handle a certain amount of calls per minute, meaning it took hours to make the calls, limited to people whose names are on the account.
The Environmental Protection Agency recommended D.C. Water make what is called “reverse 911” calls to reach residents before they could use their water on Friday morning.
The communication problem was particularly acute in areas of the District where residents do not speak English.
Wow,” he said, after having learned even filtered water had been deemed unsafe.
“Now that’s a problem.” As in Columbia Heights, the neighborhood Giant and Safeway had both run out of bottled water by Saturday.

Learn More