Jan. 31 Newsletter: Texts from senior officials shed light on early hours of water crisis
Weather: Rain in the morning and evening, with pleasant temperatures in between.
On this date in 1904, City Council's finance committee recommends increasing the salary of the city accountant from $1,800 to $2,400 a year, making him the city’s highest-paid employee. (The $2,400 would be about $80,000 today.)

Texts show DPU officials believed backup generators were on during early hours of water crisis
Email and text communications obtained by The Richmonder through FOIA reveal new behind-the-scenes detail of a chaotic day as the city's water plant went down, leading to a four-day outage for most residents.
- Two top DPU officials said in messages during the 7 a.m. hour that backup generators at the plant were on, which is at odds with explanations that have been given since.
- Struggles with the main IT system, known as SCADA, continued into the night on Jan. 6, and ultimately led to Governor Glenn Youngkin reaching out to a top official at GE, the company that made the system, to request additional help.
- Richmond Mayor Danny Avula was conducting business as normal in the morning hours, and doesn't appear to be made aware of the gravity of the situation until the early afternoon, when the city began preparing a boil water advisory.
Read more from the documents obtained by The Richmonder here.
Water outage relief fund will start with about $650,000 in city money
Richmond’s Water Crisis Fund — created to provide financial aid to city residents who lost money or couldn’t pay bills during the water outage — will begin accepting applications later today.
In addition to the city money, Avula also made a $25,000 contribution to the fund from his PAC account, and donations are being accepted through the United Way.
- The fund will not give cash directly to recipients, but will instead be used to make payments to third parties to help cover participants’ bills.
"We really want to focus on people who, particularly in their housing situations, might be at risk,” Avula said, while noting the city will assess the response to determine if more funds may be needed.
Read more on the funding, and process, here.

Richmond Utilities Commission role remains uncertain as fallout from water crisis continues
Formed in 2023, the commission is intended to provide City Council and the mayor with "information and advice concerning the management and operations of the utilities operated by the City."
But at a Thursday meeting, the group struggled to get answers to its questions about the water crisis.
Department of Public Utilities Deputy Director Eric Whitehurst answered questions from the group, but was stopped numerous times by a city attorney.
The commission's chair said it was “frustrating to not get answers to what appear to be fairly straightforward questions.”
Read more on the meeting here.
In other news
- GRTC hopes changes, including armed security, will help make riding the bus safer in Richmond (CBS 6)
- Former Mills Godwin pitcher Aaron McGarity isn't giving up on his Major League dreams (Jerry Lindquist)
- VCU Health suspends gender-affirming care for those 18 and younger (8 News)
The editor's desk
A Thursday afternoon surprise arrived in the form of 416 pages of documents relating to the water crisis, shedding light on just what happened in the hours after power was lost at Richmond's main water plant. Our team worked late into the evening to digest the information and put out another water-centric issue — certainly not the last.
Michael Phillips, founding editor
mphillips@richmonder.org
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