Timeline: How Richmond's water crisis unfolded

For much of the first full week of 2025, residents of Virginia's capital city didn't have drinkable water coming out of their taps.

Why it matters: So much information was coming out at different times from various sources it was hard to keep track of what actually happened in the moment.

Catch up quick: The water issues stemmed from an early morning power outage on Monday, Jan. 6, and a series of backup system failures at the city's main water treatment plant during a winter storm.

• Due to interconnected water systems, ultimately hundreds of thousands of residents across five localities were without running water or under boil water advisories.
• School districts closed for the week, hundreds of small businesses were forced to shutter and the start of the state's legislative session was delayed until the following week.

Here's how the week unfolded, based on information shared by officials and local news reports.

Of note: City offices were closed for non-essential workers on Jan. 6 due to the winter storm. The usual water plant staff remained onsite Sunday into Monday.

Monday

About 5:50am: Richmond's water treatment facility loses power and fails to automatically switch over to its main backup power source as designed.

• A battery-powered backup kicks on but only lasts for 45 minutes.
• Staff calls the on-call electrician, who comes within 30 minutes. Exact timing unclear.

By 7:30am: Electrician manually switches the system over to the back up power source. But the loss of power when the battery backup ran out caused the plant's main computer system, SCADA, to crash.

• That system automatically controls valves to the plant, and with it offline, the valves don't close and the plant's basement starts to flood.

• When SCADA is rebooted, it can't connect to the servers.

9:39 a.m.: Dominion Energy fully restores power to the plant but, because of the above issues, it's still not operational.

1pm: Mayor Avula, six days into the job, gets a full briefing on water plant issues outside a short conversation about power issues earlier that morning.

2pm: Reports start circulating media that the Fan and Museum Districts don't have running water.

Afternoon: Henrico and Hanover residents start to lose water pressure.

4:25pm: Richmond issues boil water advisory for the city, urges residents to conserve water and says some may "experience a total loss of water services," other, lower water pressure in a news release.

• The city says Chesterfield, Henrico and Hanover are off the city water supply and do not need to boil water.

5:15pm: Avula holds the first press conference about the water crisis, reiterates the boil water advisory and urges conservation.

• When Axios asks about total water loss in parts of the city, Avula says he just learned 30 minutes earlier that there are some households without any pressure at all.

5:30pm: Hanover County says it's switched to an alternative water source due to Richmond's issues, but says some locals may experience lower water pressure.

• The county assures residents its water is safe to drink, but asks folks to conserve due to pressure issues.

8:54pm: The city cancels a second press conference, scheduled for around 9pm.

10pm: When service was initially expected to be restored with pressure strong enough for flushing. The deadline comes and goes.

Tuesday

Morning: There are widespread reports of no water in most city neighborhoods.

8:15am: In a presser, Avula says there wasn't "actual continued functioning" of a pump filling the water tanks until Tuesday morning,

9am: Henrico says some residents in the eastern part of the county are experiencing low water pressure.

• They attribute it to the county's quick switch off of the city's water and water main breaks, noting "all Henrico water customers are currently being served from the Henrico Water Treatment Facility."

9:08am: The Richmond airport loses water.

10am: The city opens 10 water distribution centers with limited twice daily hours, but water is slow to arrive and runs out quickly.

10:23am: The airport closes all its bathrooms and brings in porta potties for travelers to use.

11:30am: Henrico County manager John Vithoulkas holds his first presser on the outage, saying parts of the eastern portion of the county have no water or low water pressure.

• Vithoulkas says the city's delay in notifying its county partners about issues at its own water reservoir drove Henrico's issues.

Noon: The city says water production is restored at the plant, but it will take several hours to come back for local residents. Most residents don't get it back as more than a trickle until Thursday morning.

Afternoon: An electrical panel fails at the plant and the city calls in additional experts to help.

12:30pm: Hanover has its first press conference on the issue, says "many areas" of the county are experiencing low water pressure and some parts of the county are losing water.

• Officials put the eastern portion of the county under a boil water advisory and open water distribution centers.

1pm: Henrico opens two round-the-clock water distribution centers.

Evening: Richmond school announce they'll be closed for the remainder of the week due to the water issues.

• Henrico and Hanover schools end up also closing for the rest of the week.

Around 7:30pm: The General Assembly says it'll gavel in on Wednesday, as required by state code, and then adjourn until Monday due to lack of water.

Wednesday

5am: The city says 12 filters and three pumps are operational at the Richmond water plant — a significant overnight improvement in water production after an electric panel failure Tuesday afternoon delayed the restoration process.

3:30pm: Henrico announces boil water advisory for the entire county out of an "abundance of caution."

5:50pm: Goochland announces a boil water advisory for its eastern portion, which neighbors Henrico. Goochland also opens water distribution centers.

Thursday

Morning: Most of the region once again has running water, but it's not yet drinkable. Water distribution centers continue running.

Noon: The city's reservoir is full and all nine of the city's water zones are pressurized, which means the portions of Henrico and Hanover counties that didn't have water should be back, too, Avula says at a press conference.

• Avula vows to be "absolutely committed to being transparent" and "running a rigorous, comprehensive" investigation into how this happened.

3pm: The city starts the first water sample test.

Friday

7:30-11:30am: Water samples for Richmond's second test start getting collected.

1pm: Testing for second water samples begins.

3pm: First water test passes.

Afternoon: Gov. Youngkin says the state will also launch an investigation into Richmond's water crisis.

Saturday

11:30am: The boil water advisory is lifted for Richmond, Henrico, Hanover and Goochland, announced via news releases.

Noon: At a presser, Avula announces that the boil water advisory is lifted and chugs a glass of city tap water. He also says the city water plant functioned as intended through Friday night snow.

• Vithoulkas says Henrico will conduct its own independent investigation into what happened and plans to review whether the eastern portion of the county, which currently uses city water, could connect to county water in the future.

Sabrina Moreno contributed to this report.