Charlotte Water says new alert system ‘almost ready’ after daylong outage in South End
A day after an “unpredictable” water outage in South End, Charlotte Water says it is creating a new notification system to avoid future communication issues with affected customers.
“We’re working on a system that’s almost ready to be rolled out,” spokeswoman Jennifer Frost told The Charlotte Observer on Friday. “We’re just finalizing the last bit of testing to make sure that all our customers are geo-located properly.”
The new notification system will send alerts to all affected customers through text, phone and email, Frost said.
Charlotte Water first tweeted about an outage near the intersection of Dunavant and Hawkins streets around 10 p.m. Wednesday. Repairs were completed nearly 24 hours later, the agency said Thursday night.
Some affected residents complained Thursday about the lack of communication from Charlotte Water and their apartment complexes.
Alex Doxey, who lives at Hub South End, said she didn’t get a notification from her apartment complex until 8:30 a.m. Thursday — almost 12 hours after her water stopped working.
Charlotte Water currently uses its Twitter and Nextdoor accounts to update customers about outages, Frost said. The agency also contacts property managers, including apartment complexes, because they have tools to reach residents, she said.
“We did that (Thursday), but of course no one good tool is going to give us a good net to reach everybody,” Frost said.
Contractor damaged water main
Charlotte Water has not said how many customers were affected by this week’s outage, which Frost called “unplanned.”
On Wednesday night, construction crews at a development left steel plates over a hole and exposed an 8-inch pipe, Frost said. The steel plates fell in at some point and damaged the pipe, she said.
“That’s not what’s supposed to happened,” Frost said.
Charlotte Water is seeking reimbursement from the private contractor and the site’s developers, Frost said. Samet Corp., the general contractor of the Hawkins Press development, said it is investigating the cause of damaged water main.
An eight-floor, 426-unit apartment complex is being built at the site, the Observer previously reported. Washington-based developer Akridge is partnering with Virginia-based Kettler on the apartment building.
“It happened to us. It wasn’t one of our own projects,” Frost said. “There was nothing we could do to avoid it.”
Restoring water to residents took some time because the steel plates landed on two different sections and a valve of the pipe, according to Frost.
“We had to make sure it was shored,” she said. “It was a very unusual break.”
Frost said Charlotte Water understands how frustrating it must have been for the affected residents.
“We have emergencies all the time, but that one ... was really inconvenient to our customers, so we appreciate everybody’s patience,” she said.
