Indianapolis, Indiana Water Outage Today

Indianapolis tap water system, by the numbers

The system behind most taps in Indianapolis is Citizens Water - Indianapolis, which EPA records list as serving roughly 880,345 people. Customers know it as Citizens Energy Group; the name on your bill is the one to call.

Where Indianapolis's tap water comes from

Tap water in Indianapolis starts as surface water. Citizens Water - Indianapolis takes it from the Fall Creek, T.W. Moses, and White River North and runs it through treatment before it reaches the mains. Treatment points named in EPA's facility list include Treatment Plant #2 - Fall Creek, Treatment Plant #3 - T.W. Moses, and Treatment Plant #4 - White R North (Sw). After treatment the water is held in 36 storage tanks and reservoirs and pushed uphill by 35 pump facilities; that storage is the buffer that keeps taps running for a few hours after a pump or main fails.

The outage angle. A surface-water system depends on its plant staying online. If the plant, the raw-water pumps or the power feeding them fails, pressure can fall across the entire service area at once, and a precautionary boil notice tends to cover whole zones rather than the single street of a main break.

What causes water outages and low pressure in Indianapolis

Which failures hit Indianapolis hardest follows from its weather, its housing stock and how it is supplied.

• Freezing weather. Indianapolis sees about 116 days a year with a low at or below 32°F, and 34 days at or below 20°F. The coldest morning in the 2015 through 2025 record came on January 15, 2024. The longest stretch with highs that never rose above freezing ran 16 days, ending February 20, 2021. Frozen service lines and meters cause single-address outages, while ground frost and thaw cycles crack older mains and produce the street-wide breaks.
• Older neighborhoods and pipe. 46.7% of occupied homes in Indianapolis were built before 1970, against 35.5% nationally. Streets of that age tend to sit on cast iron and early steel mains that are near or past their design life, which is where most breaks start.
• Flooding and heavy rain. NOAA logged 45 flood, flash flood and heavy rain reports in Marion County from 2015 through 2026, and 6 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 Marion County number 249 since 2015. Pump stations and treatment plants that depend on AES Indiana 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.
• Planned shutoffs and a problem at one address. Valve replacements and new connections are announced ahead, often with door hangers. If neighbors have water, check your own shutoff valve, meter and pressure regulator before calling.

How weather strains the Indianapolis water system

Main break season in Indianapolis 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.

Indianapolis boil water notices and EPA compliance record

Since 2015, EPA's record for Citizens Water - Indianapolis shows no health-based violations. It also lists 1 monitoring or reporting entry that is about paperwork rather than water quality, such as a missed sample or a late report.

Most recent entries, all monitoring or reporting:

• November 2020: A missed or late monitoring or reporting requirement (surface water treatment and turbidity) It is marked resolved.

Boil water notices in Indianapolis are precautions, not findings. When pressure drops, Citizens Energy Group tells affected customers to boil water until two rounds of lab tests are clean, a process that normally takes 24 to 48 hours after service is restored, under oversight from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM).

Lead, older pipes and water quality in Indianapolis

The most recent 90th-percentile lead result filed for Citizens Water - Indianapolis is 5.2 ppb (2025). The federal action level is 15 ppb, so that result is comfortably below it.

46.7% of occupied homes in Indianapolis 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 Citizens Energy Group about its lead service line inventory.

When will the water come back on in Indianapolis?

Most repairs of an ordinary main break in Indianapolis 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 880,345 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.

For a break that affects many customers, Citizens Energy Group usually posts an estimated restoration time. When you call, ask the dispatcher what the crew has told them.

Preparing for a long water outage in Indianapolis

The average household in Indianapolis has about 2.4 people, so FEMA's minimum of one gallon per person per day comes to roughly 7 gallons for three days and 34 gallons for two weeks.

• 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 Indianapolis compares with nearby water systems

Water outage pages for nearby cities

Carmel, IN · Cincinnati, OH · Covington, KY · Dayton, OH