Mistakes were made, the Long Beach City Council acknowledged late Tuesday as they discussed the city’s response to a burst water main that left 125,000 residents under a boil-water notice — a process they said was marred by shoddy communication that didn’t get the warning out until well after the pipes broke.
In response, the council asked the city’s Utilities Department General Manager B. Anatole Falagan to come back before them in 45 days with a report on its handling of the break.
City Manager Tom Modica said the city has “already started” preparing the report for the council.
This comes more than a week after a burst water pipe in California Heights sent water gushing into the neighborhood and put residents in three zip codes on a boil-water notice.
Officials lifted the state-mandated order early Friday after more than a hundred samples found the water safe to drink.
Council members and city leadership applauded the city’s response to what Modica said was the first boil-water notice in his “22 years here in Long Beach.” The city manager also clarified that “at the end of the day, there was never an issue with the water.”
“A hundred and seventy-seven tests were conducted,” Modica said. “Every single one came back negative.”
But in reflection, the council felt the Utilities Department’s response was slow and confusing, leaving even elected officials unsure of whether their water was safe to drink.
The pipe burst around 11:20 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 9, at 37th Street and Orange Avenue. But notices were not posted until late that night, hours after pressure had been restored and officials had assured residents their water was safe.
The warning about possible contamination “came as a shock,” said Councilmember Megan Kerr, “with a lot of unknowns,” that led to “fear, misinformation and distress.”
Several on the dais shared stories from neighbors and friends who used the water in the hours between the broken main and when the notice was posted.
“When the alert finally went out to the community, not everyone affected received it,” said Councilmember Joni Rick-Oddie. “And those who did said it was hard to understand … and the alert didn’t clearly explain what the boil water notice was.”
Councilmember Roberto Uranga said several of his residents didn’t get the boil water notice.
“I got more information at almost midnight from our city manager than I did from anywhere else,” Uranga said to Falagan. “He wasn’t supposed to be in that loop. … You were. Sorry to put you in that spot, to jump on you in that way, but you’re the manager, … jump on it.”
Councilmember Al Austin said that when text message alerts came Thursday evening, residents came knocking on his door. “They said, ‘I didn’t know that this was going on,’” he recalled. “‘I brushed my teeth, I cooked, I did everything that I wasn’t supposed to do in the course of the day.’ I was left speechless.”
Austin, who lives across the street from the broken main, said he was left with few updates on the water’s status. “I found myself on pins and needles waiting for more information,” Austin said.
Others complained that notices were not sent to all those who could have been affected. Only residents in ZIP codes 90805, 90807 and parts of 90806 received a notice, while those with a landline — about 50,000 people — were contacted through the Alert Long Beach phone system.
“This was a fifth of our city, if there was a major disaster, if this was an earthquake that affected the entire region, we know everyone is going to be using emergency systems,” Kerr said. “I would like to know that ours is up to the task of alerting as many folks as possible.”
The burst pipe also revealed the city has many pipes that are old and in need of replacement. According to Long Beach Utilities Laboratory Services Manager Kevin Hoang, a secondary break revealed a 20-inch cast iron pipeline he estimated was nearly a hundred years old.
The report, at the council’s request, should provide a timeline of events, the scope of the damage and an explanation for how the city is meant to handle a future, and far graver, crisis.
“Hopefully we learned something from this and this doesn’t happen again,” Austin said.
Editor’s note: This story was updated with the correct cross street for the location of the water main break.