City of Houston criticized for insufficient communication over boil water notice
Waiter Artan Cinaj stocks the bar at the Etoile Cuisine restaurant with ice and bottled water Monday, Nov. 28, 2022, in Houston. The city of Houston issued a boil water notice late Sunday evening after water pressure dropped below the minimum standard during a power outage at the East Water Purification Plant around 10:30 a.m.
Houstonian Andrew Jefferson said he first learned of the boil water advisory on social media around 10:30 p.m. Sunday. “The thinking was it was not going to trigger a need for a boil water notice,” the mayor said. “We were in collaboration with TCEQ and a decision was made out of an abundance of caution to issue the boil water notice.”
“We did not know it was going to crash,’ She said. “So, that's why we troubleshoot and we have a new link available.”The city’s response was a failure from a crisis communications standpoint and did not take into account the needs of Houston’s diverse populations, according to Anna Núñez, a Houston-based media specialist who has done communications and community outreach work for a number of government agencies and nonprofits over the past two decades.
“The AlertHouston message should have gone out at the same time as that media release, and it’s not enough because AlertHouston is something that you have to opt in for,” she said. “It should have gone out as a wireless emergency alert that you basically have to opt out of.”
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