Montgomery, Alabama Water Outage Today

Who runs the water in Montgomery: system profile

The system behind most taps in Montgomery is City of Montgomery Ww&Ssb, which EPA records list as serving roughly 276,000 people. Customers know it as Montgomery Water Works & Sanitary Sewer Board; the name on your bill is the one to call.

What feeds the taps in Montgomery

Tap water in Montgomery starts as surface water. City of Montgomery Ww&Ssb takes it from Ct Perry (Tallapoosa River) and runs it through treatment before it reaches the mains. Treatment points named in EPA's facility list include Day Street WTP, C.T. Perry WTP, and Horse Farm WTP. After treatment the water is held in 10 storage tanks and reservoirs and pushed uphill by 5 pump facilities; that storage is the buffer that keeps taps running for a few hours after a pump or main fails.

The outage angle. Because the water is drawn from open surface sources, it has to be filtered and disinfected continuously. A plant problem therefore hits everyone at once, unlike a main break, which only dries up the blocks on either side of the damaged pipe.

Why the water goes out in Montgomery

These are the causes that match the record for Montgomery, listed roughly in order of how much they matter here.

• Freezing weather. Montgomery sees about 31 days a year with a low at or below 32°F, and 1 day at or below 20°F. The coldest morning in the 2015 through 2025 record came on January 8, 2017. Frozen service lines and meters cause single-address outages, while ground frost and thaw cycles crack older mains and produce the street-wide breaks.
• Summer demand. Montgomery has about 33 days a year at or above 95°F and 5 at or above 100°F, and the hottest day in the record came on September 17, 2019. Lawn irrigation and cooling push demand to its yearly high, so pumps run hard, tanks drain faster than they refill and pressure sags on high ground in the evening.
• Long dry spells. The longest stretch without measurable rain since 2015 lasted 42 days, ending November 27, 2016. Dry soil shrinks and shifts around buried pipe, and breaks often cluster when the rain returns and the ground swells again.
• Flooding and heavy rain. NOAA logged 18 flood, flash flood and heavy rain reports in Montgomery County from 2015 through 2026, and 10 days a year bring an inch of rain or more. Flooding is hard on water systems in three ways: it erodes soil around pipe crossings, drowns pumps and electrical equipment, and can let contaminated runoff into the mains, which triggers precautionary boil notices.
• Storm-driven power loss. Thunderstorm wind, hail and tornado reports in Montgomery County number 86 since 2015. Pump stations and treatment plants that depend on Alabama Power run on the electric grid, so a storm that downs power lines can lower water pressure even when no pipe is damaged.
• Construction and third-party damage. A backhoe or boring crew that hits a main is among the most common reasons a single block goes dry without warning. Utilities handle those the same way as any break: isolate, repair, flush.

How weather strains the Montgomery water system

Main break season in Montgomery runs from late fall into early spring, with the coldest stretch around December through February.

These counts come from a gridded reanalysis, which smooths out single-day extremes and can differ by a few degrees from an airport thermometer. Use them to compare seasons and years, not as official station records.

Montgomery boil water notices and EPA compliance record

Since 2015, EPA's record for City of Montgomery Ww&Ssb shows no health-based violations.

A boil water notice in Montgomery is a separate thing from a violation. Montgomery Water Works & Sanitary Sewer Board issues one when pressure falls low enough for contamination to enter the pipes, after a main break is repaired, or when a routine test comes back positive. The Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) oversees the process, and the notice stays until clean samples come back, usually a day or two after pressure returns.

What the lead tests and housing age say about Montgomery

The most recent 90th-percentile lead result filed for City of Montgomery Ww&Ssb is 0 ppb (2023). The federal action level is 15 ppb, so that result is far from the limit.

35% of occupied homes in Montgomery were built before 1970, and lead service lines and solder stayed legal until the federal ban in 1986. After any outage that disturbs the pipes, run the cold tap 30 seconds to 2 minutes before drinking, and ask Montgomery Water Works & Sanitary Sewer Board about its lead service line inventory.

When will the water come back on in Montgomery?

Most repairs of an ordinary main break in Montgomery take half a day once the crew is on site. Bigger mains, deep bury and busy roads stretch that to a day or more. With 276,000 people on the system, a break on a main that feeds a whole district can leave thousands of homes dry at once, and crews may close valves several blocks away to isolate it.

Ask Montgomery Water Works & Sanitary Sewer Board for a restoration estimate when you report the outage; for large breaks it is normally posted and updated as the repair progresses.

Preparing for a long water outage in Montgomery

With about 2.4 people in the typical Montgomery home, FEMA's one-gallon-per-person-per-day rule means 7 gallons covers three days and 34 gallons covers two weeks.

• Heat: 33 days a year top 95°F here, so plan for more than the one-gallon minimum, and keep extra for pets.
• 16.9% of residents report a disability (US 13.3%), so check on neighbors who rely on running water for medical equipment.
• Do not forget the water heater: the tank holds roughly 30 to 50 gallons you can drink after it is switched off and allowed to cool.
• If a planned shutoff or storm is coming, fill the tub and some buckets for flushing toilets and washing; keep drinking water in clean sealed containers.

How Montgomery compares with nearby water systems

Water outage pages for nearby cities

Columbus, GA · Birmingham, AL · Atlanta, GA · Mobile, AL