Atlanta remains under state of emergency amid ongoing water troubles

Atlanta remains under a state of emergency Monday as it continues to grapple with disruptions to its water service that first began last week, leaving a swath of a major city under boil water advisories and highlighting the pervasiveness of America’s aging infrastructure.

Atlanta Public Schools’ summer school and programs will not be held Monday as a result, and the programs “will reconvene once the boil water advisories have been lifted,” according to a notice from the district. Non-essential employees have been told to work remotely.

The city has been plagued by its water woes since Friday, when the first two of a series of water main breaks emerged. Repairs were completed on one break near downtown Saturday evening, hours before Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens declared a state of emergency. Repairs on the other break, in Midtown, have yet to be completed, and crews were working on it as recently as Monday morning, according to a city news release.

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The Atlanta Department of Watershed Management reported another possible break Sunday and said emergency repairs were completed on a 6-inch water main in the Candler Park neighborhood by late that afternoon.

Collectively, the breaks and repairs in progress left parts of the city without water and under boil water advisories, forcing tourist attractions to shut down and postponing events, including two Megan Thee Stallion concerts scheduled for Friday and Saturday.

“I know it has been a tough and frustrating day for many of you,” Dickens said Saturday in declaring the state of emergency, which allows the city to expedite access to resources for the repairs. “We all take this matter very seriously.”

Atlanta’s troubles in recent days are indicative of a broader issue with decaying infrastructure across the country. In the US and Canada, around 260,000 water main breaks cost $2.6 billion each year, according to a December 2023 study from Utah State University.

The study noted the average age of failing water mains is around 53 years and that 33% of US and Canadian water mains are over 50 years old.