Crisis Comms Perspectives on #RVAWaterGate
By Destiny Aman, JPoint Strategic Design SME & CEO
2025 got off to a bit of a rocky start here in Richmond, VA when, in the early hours of Monday, January 6 a brief, snowstorm-induced power failure at the water treatment plant caused a weeklong citywide water outage that affected more than 230,000.
While certainly a few inches of snow in the South can wreak a great deal of havoc on its own, Richmond city’s efforts to resolve the post-storm water outage while adequately communicating with residents was complicated by a variety of issues – both technical and situational. Backup pumps failed to pump, IT alert systems failed to alert, and a brand-spanking-new mayor, sworn in only a few days before the crisis, delivered optimistic briefing after optimistic briefing to an increasingly thirsty public.
In the meantime, Richmond stores were completely cleared out of bottled water, and the memes started flowing in place of the taps.
Although water service began to return by late afternoon Wednesday, progress was uneven and some in the city were without water for several days. By the end of the week, most residents had running water again, and by mid-day Saturday, the boil advisory was lifted.
Residents weren’t without water for all that long, but some communication missteps likely created more confusion and resentment.
At JPoint Collaborative, we understand that crisis communications are one of the most important and challenging forms of public outreach, and having a plan in place for doing it well is a critical element of disaster resilience. Having experienced this event first-hand, our Richmond-based team shared some of our learnings from this event.
1. Outreach Timing: The first major hiccup in the city’s communication strategy was failing to let residents know about the problems at the treatment plant in a timely manner. The power outage occurred before 6am on Monday morning, but residents weren’t informed about the impending loss of water until late Monday afternoon. By this time, many people were already out or almost out of water entirely, leaving people little time to prepare by, say, filling their bathtubs with water so they’d be able to flush the toilet.
While it can be tempting to take a ‘wait and see’ approach to events like this, people don’t like to feel blindsided, and they really don’t like to feel like information is being kept from them, especially if it’s information that could have helped them prepare for an emergency event better. With so little time to prepare, many residents resorted to melting snow to fill their toilet tanks and flush!
2. Relevant Guidance: The other issue was in providing relevant guidance. Unfortunately, Richmond swore in a new mayor just a week prior to the water crisis, so Mayor Avula only had a few days in office under his belt when this all happened. This may have been the reason for some longer than ideal gaps between press conferences updating residents on the situation.
Unfortunately, during these gaps, conflicting guidance began to spread from a variety of sources – both official and unofficial. Residents were told to conserve water, but also to fill bathtubs, buckets, and other receptacles. Residents initially found no information on the city’s website and social media accounts, and by the time officials provided official guidance to boil water, most residents had no water to boil. Then, most of Tuesday, when many residents were out of water entirely, went by without a press conference. This gave more time for rumors to spread and resentment to grow.
Frequent communication during a situation like this is key, because even if work is being done behind the scenes, the public can’t see it. Even if there isn’t much to report, just sending out messages that the problem is being worked on, or in this situation, about where residents could get emergency water supplies, for instance, would have gone a long way in making people feel informed.
Since this situation had to do with an essential city service that residents pay for, the press conference format that the city used for communication was a good one. Seeing reporters ask questions is a good way for city residents to feel ‘heard,’ they just needed to be more frequent, especially on the first day or so, to ensure that the message met the audiences’ needs.
3. Expectation Management: Another misstep was in managing expectations. Mayor Avula gave overly optimistic predictions a couple of times during the week about when residents could expect water service to return – at the beginning of the whole ordeal, he made it sound like it could be fixed within a day or two, but residents weren’t able to drink their tap water for six days. In this kind of situation, it’s better to under promise and over deliver than the reverse! Raising residents’ hopes can contribute to feelings of resentment, and also keep people from making the kinds of contingency plans they might need to to ride out a longer crisis.
There were a few bright spots in the city’s communications. Mayor Avula took plenty of time during press conferences to answer questions from the press, even going well over the allotted time at one point. He also did a good job of explaining what went wrong at the plant in plain language that was easy to understand. And in the days that followed, the Department of Public Utilities Director April Bingham resigned, showing that accountability was being taken for what went wrong.
Whether you’re navigating a water crisis, wildfire, or hurricane, crisis comms plays an important role in public safety by helping timely, clear and actionable information reach the people who need it most.
Need help with crisis communications? Reach out to us at JPoint Collaborative — where ideas meet action and solutions are just a conversation away!
