Public not alerted to water crisis until hours later

Mayor Dick Greco says the lag time in informing customers of the boil-your-water order Monday is not acceptable and must be corrected.

By DAVID KARP, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 2, 2002

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TAMPA -- At 10:17 a.m. Monday, officials at Tampa's water treatment plant knew they had to act quickly. Water pressure across the city was dropping fast.

One of the three generators powering about 75-million gallons of water across Tampa had just given out. And the two other generators were dying.

Workers had to get across the darkened water treatment plant to turn a power switch. They reached it at 10:22 a.m., just in time to keep the water pressure from dropping to zero.

Their fast action prevented a public health problem in Tampa's water supply. But once the emergency was over, a staff that had responded quickly began moving much too slowly, Mayor Dick Greco said Tuesday.

City water officials took almost four hours Monday to notify the media and the public that they needed to boil all drinking water in the city. The power outage had opened up the possibility of contamination.

"Everyone realizes this is not acceptable," Greco said at a news conference. "It can't take two or three hours."

"We are living in a different time," he said, referring to the possibility of a terrorist attack.

Greco lifted the advisory against drinking water shortly before noon Tuesday. Then he ordered officials to prepare a report on what happened, and to set up a system to prevent it from happening again.

"I want to see that paper in the next few days," Greco said, turning to water officials.

The incident started at 9:45 a.m. with the monthly test of the plant's backup power generators. As required by regulations, officials turned off electric power and put the system on three generators.

About 30 minutes later, the first generator went out.

Within three minutes, water pressure had dropped from the norm of 65 pounds per square inch to 10 pounds per square inch in places. In a few spots in Tampa, the water pressure fell to 5 pounds per square inch.

Homes and businesses immediately felt the drop. About 60 customers called in right away.

About an hour later, Mike Bennett's cell phone rang. Bennett is the production manager who oversees the plant. The water director, who would normally take the call, was on vacation.

Workers had waited an hour to call Bennett so they could get the plant running again and determine what damage had been done.

Bennett told them to call the state Health Department. It was about 11:25 a.m.

Around 11:40 a.m., state health officials recommended that the city issue a bulletin telling residents to boil all drinking water.

Officials wanted to be extra cautious. Even though water pressure never dropped to zero, they worried that some contaminated water might have crept into the system.

About the same time, Sandra Anderson, the water department spokeswoman, got the word on her cell phone and started working on a news release.

But before sending it out, she ran it by health officials. She also called the state Health Department director. Another hour raced by.

Finally, at 1:59 p.m., the first media alert came out. But the e-mail went out on a news service that some media organizations do not use.

Anderson never told Julie Harris, the mayor's communications director, about the news.

Anderson said she sent out faxes to newsrooms and called many news organizations to follow up. But many news organizations didn't get the fax, the alert or a call.

A Times reporter learned about the news late Monday while attending a news conference at the Hillsborough County Courthouse. A security guard warned him not to drink the water.

At the Tampa Bay Downtown Preschool, director Marianne Cali didn't learn about the bulletin until she got home Monday night. Luckily, a parent had warned someone else at the school.

"It could have caused a problem," Cali said. "With the crazies today, you never know."

Three television reporters told the mayor at his news conference that they couldn't get their calls to the water department returned.

"If the press needs to know something and they get a voice mail, that is upsetting," Greco said. "Without the press, what are you going to do? Shout in the wind?"

Anderson, the water spokeswoman, acknowledged she could have done better.

As it turned out, tests Tuesday showed no signs that any drinking water had been contaminated.

-- David Karp can be reached at 226-3376 or karp@sptimes.com.

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