Richardson boil water notice expected to last through Friday morning
RICHARDSON, Texas - Thousands of Richardson residents will need to continue boiling their water for at least a little longer.
The sensor malfunction that led to the boil water notice also forced Richardson ISD to close five schools on Thursday. But those schools are expected to reopen on Friday.
"My mom got a message that we weren’t going to school," said Grady Clifton, a Richardson ISD third grader.
"I was like so excited that we weren’t going to school," added Parker Clifton, a first grader.
The Clifton family joined thousands of people who lined up to get bottled water at the Heights Recreation Center after the city said some of its tap water was not safe to drink.
About 17,000 homes and businesses were affected between Coit Road, Arapaho Road, U.S. Highway 75 and Spring Valley Road.
"Life kinda throws a curveball every now and then and anyone with kids I think understands that. Take it one day at a time. But we appreciate the support with the additional water and notification," said Blake Clifton.
Richardson officials said an equipment sensor malfunction caused a loss of water pressure that was noticed on Wednesday.
Boil water notice issued in Richardson: Avoid using tap water
Residents in Richardson should not wash their hands, brush their teeth, cook, or use running water for any purpose after officials issued a boil water notice.
"Yesterday around mid-afternoon we began to get complaints from residents and other users, other customers about the water pressure. That sparked us to start investigating our distribution system. We found that a telemetry sensor in water tower at Holly had malfunctioned and was not sending information back to our monitoring stations," said City Manager Don Magner. "The water in that tower had fallen. It actually completely emptied the tower even though the sensor was reporting it was still at 10 feet."
On Thursday morning, water was released from the same water tower. But a city spokesperson said that was related to a different issue.
Richardson is now waiting to get test results back to determine if the water is safe to drink. Those results are expected around 10 a.m. on Friday morning.
"We anticipate first thing tomorrow we will receive test information back from the lab," Manger said.
After consulting with the Centers for Disease Control, the city does believe the water is now safe to use for washing and bathing.
And the five schools in the affected area – Arapaho Classical Magnet, Dover Elementary, Heights Elementary, Richardson West Junior High, and Richardson High School – will be back open on Friday.
They’ve actually been closed for three days because all Richardson ISD schools were closed on Tuesday and Wednesday because of the election.
"They have only been in one day this week. Luckily, I was off work today," Whitney Clifton said.
Richardson ISD said it will cover water fountains and stock enough bottled water for students and staff in the affected schools. The cafeterias will also serve cold meals that don’t require water in the kitchen to prepare or clean up.
The city plans to continue distributing bottled water on Friday even if there is stormy weather.