Houston mayor warns against comparing city's boil-water order to February freeze

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner warned against comparing the city's current boil-water order to last year's February freeze, when the state's electric power grid collapsed and 246 people died.

Although both were caused by power outages - the boil order when an outage Sunday at a water purification plant caused water pressure to drop, triggering concerns of possible contamination - that's where the similarities end, he said.

Turner said during a news conference that the February freeze was a completely different matter. You lost power and water and things remained down for several days, OK? For several days. Turner shared a timeline of events that led to the boil water notice and said state law requires a city to notify the public within 24 hours of the incident - a requirement he said the city had met. The order prompted officials to shut down public schools for at least one day. Carol Haddock, the director of Houston Public Works, was among the guests at the news conference Monday.

Two transformers failed, causing power outages at the East Water Purification Plant, which provides water for much of Houston's 2.2 million residents, according to Turner. He said there was no indication that the water system had been contaminated.

Water quality testing was underway, and the notice would be lifted by Tuesday morning at the latest, he said. The East Water Purification Plant is located outside the city, in Galena Park.

On Sunday morning, 16 sensors marked dips under the minimum pressure levels of 20 psi, or pounds per square inch, required by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Fourteen sensors marked dips for only 2 minutes and two for nearly 30 minutes, Turner said.

He said power was restored to the plant by 12: 30 p.m. If contamination occurred when the pressure dipped, it might still be traveling through the system, which is why the boil notice remained in effect despite satisfactory pressure, he said.

The city issued a boil water notice in an abundance of caution after the main transformer and its backup failed, Turner said. Even if the generators had been turned on, the problem would still have occurred, he said.

I asked Public Works to do an overall review of our system, a diagnostic review, to see how we can prevent this from happening again, Turner said.

A boil water notice was issued sometime between 6 p.m. and 6 p.m., and he said that conversations between the city and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality took place from 2 : 43 p.m. to 6 : 40 p.m. The notice was sent to the public at 6: 44 p.m.

When asked why residents of the country's fourth-largest city hadn't been notified sooner, Turner said that's why we have a process in place. Turner said this was a situation that was not overlooked, ignored, and that's what I can say to people.