Trial by water: Avula spends first days in office tackling outage, community fills gaps

Mayor Danny Avula speaks to the press after announcing the Richmond boil water advisory had been lifted on Saturday, Jan. 11 at the Richmond Public Library. Photo by Andrew Kerley.
Andrew Kerley, Contributing Writer
Danny Avula, inaugurated as the 81st mayor of Richmond on Jan. 1, was quickly met with a trial by fire — or rather, water — as a winter storm wiped out the city’s water utility.
It started when Richmond’s water treatment plant lost power in the morning hours of Jan. 6, which residents first found out about through a post on Reddit. As the facility went dark, water flowed, flooding the basement where servers that function the facility were held, Avula explained at a press conference on Jan. 6. With no operational facility to treat water, people’s faucets began to run dry in the afternoon.
The city did not publicly acknowledge the incident until 4:26 p.m. that day, when they announced a city-wide boil water advisory — directing residents to boil tap water to kill bacteria before drinking it. Avula said residents may experience water pressure issues.
Avula originally said water would be back to normal by Jan. 8 at the latest. Between a second electrical failure, restoring water production and testing for drinkability, Richmonders did not have clean, running water until Jan. 11, according to the city.
The crisis left thousands of people without clean drinking water, working showers and flushable toilets. Bottled water quickly sold out at grocery stores, and many businesses were forced to close.
The city — in collaboration with the Virginia Department of Health and Virginia Red Cross — provided relief by distributing thousands of gallons of water starting on Jan. 7, though the first deliveries were delayed multiple hours as trucks drove on icy roads, as seen on the official city government Instagram.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin — who was in Florida to meet with President-elect Donald Trump — did not call in the National Guard to distribute water until Jan. 10, according to the Virginia National Guard website.
Grace Blair, a fourth-year political science student, lost shifts at her restaurant job in Carytown as a result of the water crisis. She said she’s worried about paying for bills as well as back-to-school shopping, having already spent $100 on textbooks alone.
“This was a really crucial week for me to make money and do things,” Blair said.
Diana Altenhof, a third-year theatre student, had to change their plans to travel back to Richmond multiple times as water restoration continually got delayed.
“It’s been proven that Richmond does not know how to handle water in a timely fashion,” Altenhof said.
Both Altenhof and Blair criticized the city’s communication in the beginning of the crisis.
“I feel like when you don’t tell the public fully what’s going on, it’s hard for us to be able to figure out how we’re going to pay our rent or go grocery shopping,” Blair said.
Avula said during a Jan. 10 press conference the city was discussing ways to provide relief for people with rent and water bills, as well as for businesses that had to close and employees who lost work. The city has since announced 10-day grace periods for utility bills, parking tickets and other taxes. Avula also unveiled the start of a relief plan that includes a regional relief fund and support for eviction recovery programs.
Avula ran for mayor on his experience of dealing with emergency situations — having led the state’s COVID-19 vaccination efforts in 2021, his campaign website states.
The city regularly posted information regarding distribution site locations and water restoration progress throughout the week, and began translating some of the information to Spanish on their social media on Jan. 8.
Richmond bands together with mutual aid

Sheri Shannon is co-founder of Southside ReLeaf, a community organization working for environmental justice in South Richmond. The group took up the mantle of publishing translated information for Spanish-speaking Richmonders when the city was not.
ReLeaf collaborated with numerous nonprofit organizations to distribute over 100,000 bottles of water — primarily to childcare centers, senior homes and other people who could not get to distribution sites. They also created a resource map, pointing people in the direction of free showers and meal sites.
Shannon said they ran into people who did not know there was a boil water advisory or why their water pressure was low. She said there was a need for proper emergency response networks and for the city to diversify communication channels via push notifications, digital billboards, PSAs and trusted networks — all multilingual.
“I think this is a moment for Dr. Avula to really connect and deal with the Richmond community, to listen and to hear them, and to just try to restore a lot of the confidence that has been lost over time,” Shannon said.
Kalia Harris, the executive director of the Virginia Student Power Network, organized with Mutual Aid Distribution RVA to distribute thousands of water bottles throughout the week.
Harris also criticized communication, but said the problem could have been solved earlier if former Mayor Levar Stoney’s administration put more focus on strengthening infrastructure, instead of failed development projects like Navy Hill, building casinos and funding the police.
Documents show infrastructure problems with the water treatment plant were well-known years in advance, according to a report by WTVR.
Harris emphasized that disasters like the water crisis are commonplace for people dealing with food insecurity and their utilities going out — especially when the state does not meet the needs of the people in a worsening political landscape.
“I do encourage folks to tap into the mutual aid efforts that are happening every day,” Harris said. “The more people that join when it’s not a huge crisis, that will actually help us to build our capacity, to maybe even prevent these crises from happening.”