SAWS officials announce boil water advisory

SAINT ANTHONY – San Antonio Water System customers should boil their water before drinking it until further notice.

That recommendation came from SAWS President and CEO Robert Puente during Wednesday’s emergency city council meeting.

An official boil water advisory is expected to be released later Wednesday.

Puente said the boil water advisory came from “great caution” due to the low water pressure and said only water used for drinking should be boiled. Puente said tap water is safe to use for washing hands and bathing.

“It is safe to say that we are going to face this situation for days, not hours,” Puente said. “This situation is likely to worsen and more pipes on private property will suffer ruptures, and we will have a more difficult problem with keeping the pressure on.”

Puente said that as long as there are power cuts, there will be water problems.

SAWS officials said most of the blackouts were concentrated in the far north of the city or the far south. He said that while there are small pockets of water outages in the middle of the city, low water pressure was a bigger problem for most customers.

A d

He also said that the lack of electricity is not the only problem for water customers at the moment. He said that because there are so many broken pipes in the city, a huge amount of water is leaking and not reaching customers. He said that because of the leaks, the city uses more water than us on some of our hottest summer days.

District 8 councilor Manny Pelaez asked SAWS officials how people can boil water without electricity.

Puente said SAWS officials will meet with HEB soon to coordinate a way to provide water to residents who need it.

Steve Clouse. SAWS ‘senior vice president and chief operating officer told board members that CPS Energy asked SAWS to remove their pump stations from “critical circuits” when the ERCOT deployment shutdowns began. He said that is why the SAWS pumps have lost power this week.

“What we’re going through is probably a once in a generation, once in a lifetime storm,” Puente said. “SAWS is the largest energy consumer of our energy and CPS Energy is the largest user of water in our community. So we coordinated with each other. We work with each other and try to let each other know what’s going on and what’s the best way to save energy and conserve energy.

A d

Puente asked customers to be patient, saying he recognized that many customers had tried to call and couldn’t come through.

“Our customer service representatives are working from home due to the COVID pandemic, but now, unfortunately, their own homes are without power,” Puente said. “They don’t have it or they don’t have Internet services. So this prevents us from answering the phone and getting answers from the public and our community. “

Puente said this week has been a learning experience.

“We will use this particular urgency to re-evaluate what worked and what didn’t. Whether it’s our equipment, our workers, our responses, our dispatch, our communications, everything will be something that we will look at and wish to improve on the promise I make to each of you, ”Puente said. .

Also read: