A nearly two-day-long boil water order that shuttered schools and businesses and affected as many as 2.2 million customers in Houston—the nation’s fourth-largest city— was caused by a power outage stemming from the failure of two city-owned transformers.
The incident began on Nov. 27 at 10:30 a.m. when “a ground trip and current overload” tripped the main transformer as well as a backup transformer at the 1954 East Water Purification Plant, one of Houston’s oldest water treatment facilities, said Houston Public Works.
The critical infrastructure facility is connected to the Texas grid, and the City of Houston has a 20-year contract with NRG Energy for 32 heavy-duty diesel generators at the purification plant.