HOUSTON — More than 2 million people in the Houston area were urged to boil their tap water Monday after a power outage at a purification plant prompted the mayor to initiate a review of what went wrong.
The boil order notice tells customers in the nation’s fourth-largest city to boil water before it’s used for cooking, bathing or drinking. Multiple Houston-area public and private schools, as well as some local colleges, were closed Monday as a result of the notice, while others made adjustments to provide affected campuses with bottled water and sanitizer.
Houston Independent School District officials said in a Monday afternoon statement that closures would continue through Tuesday due to “the logistical challenges caused by the notice.”
“Those challenges prevent the district from being able to provide meals for its students and ensure safe water is available for students and staff,” Houston ISD officials said in a statement.
The notice was issued Sunday, hours after two transformers failed, causing power outages at the water plant, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said at a press conference Monday. There was no indication the water system had been contaminated.
Water quality testing was underway, Turner said. He said he expects the notice to be lifted by early Tuesday at the latest, once the state’s environmental agency gives an all-clear after analyzing test results.
“We are optimistic the results will come back clean,” Turner said.
According to Turner, the city issued a notice, which affects all of Houston and multiple adjacent areas, in an “abundance of caution” after the two transformers — a main one and its backup— “uniquely and coincidentally” failed.