City acknowledges ‘more training’ needed after October’s confusing boil-water notice

A brief power outage in October led to an unusual citywide boil-water notice for every resident on city water, but it was the ensuing confusion that lasted for days that had city officials scrambling for a solution.

The issue that caused the problem was a lack of communication between the water treatment plant’s high-service pump and the automatic system that kicks the generators into action. The power outage was long enough to shut down the pump, but not long enough for the generators to read there was an issue, so the pump sat silent for about 45 minutes before plant personnel realized the problem.

The city is resolving the technical issues to ensure it doesn’t happen again, but mass communication to citizens remains a challenge. City clerk Sharon Beauchamp acknowledged staff could have been better trained in the city’s automated communications system. In the meantime, staff is working with the city’s information technology and geographical information system to better tie the automated system to customers directly involved with future boil-water notices.

“We are dividing the city into zones and will get all customers assigned into those zones,” Beauchamp said. “So when the time comes, we can more easily reach out to send a phone call. When we were in a hurry to put out water notices like the last time, we didn’t get the training, so the company is working with us to use the system more efficiently.”

The communication issue brings up the city’s lack of presence on social media, but Beauchamp said it’s more complicated than just starting a Facebook page.

“We see a lot of cities using social media incorrectly,” Beauchamp said. “When posting, it becomes public record and you just can’t delete those things and people have to understand how to use those things without violating first amendment rights. Everything is more involved than you think. We haven’t forgotten what happened and we are working on it.”

Beauchamp said Twitter is the easiest direction to take as a first step, but not everyone uses Twitter and the city can’t have an expectation that every resident would follow the city.

“But we’ve got a couple of social media samples we are looking into,” she said.

Jim McLellan, public works director, said in October that the technical mishap did not create a public health hazard, which is why the city initially didn’t order the notice. The following day, the city contacted the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which recommended the notice, which was subsequently issued.

The type of incident that occurred, “does not necessarily constitute an imminent health hazard,” McLellan said in October.

This story was originally published January 4, 2018 at 3:36 PM with the headline "City acknowledges ‘more training’ needed after October’s confusing boil-water notice."