The following message is from Elin Warn Betanzo, founder of Safe Water Engineering, LLC about water restorations in Detroit.

The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) needs help to keep pushing out their number to anyone in Detroit who lacks water service.

Call Wayne Metro at 313-386-9727 to get the water turned on.

DWSD now has the call center capacity and the plumbers they need to get the water turned on, but the calls have slowed down. They need help finding occupied homes without water. Please share far and wide, especially if you personally know of homes without water. Here is an update you with the latest information that I have from DWSD about water restorations in Detroit:

As of March 30, DWSD completed over two rounds distributing information to homes without water service that may be occupied. The first was for homes where service was shut off after April 2019. The second round, started early this week, reached out to about 5000 more homes where they have a record of accounts being shut off in the past. They say that most of these homes are vacant or do not look livable. They post data updates most days on this website.

I still have some questions about the data, but they are finally making an effort to provide some transparency about this process. While this isn’t perfect, it is major progress.

While they had a huge influx of calls when they first announced the program, the calls have slowed down. They are not continuing to get an influx of new calls with the new notices about the ability to get the water turned back on. Now that they’ve brought on more plumbers they are confident they can get the water on by next week for those homes already in their work order system.

They also recognize that two weeks is too long to wait for water service. However, they still don’t have a clear path for systematically addressing the need for emergency water delivery and/or water stations. Of course, the city is struggling with all aspects or coronavirus response and every day fewer staff are available to work as they get ill or are quarantined.

Elin Warn Betanzo
Safe Water Engineering, LLC
248-326-4339