Baltimore, Maryland Water Outage Today

Who runs the water in Baltimore: system profile

City of Baltimore is the water system EPA lists for Baltimore, serving about 1,600,000 people. Customers know it as Baltimore City Department of Public Works; the name on your bill is the one to call.

Where Baltimore's tap water comes from

Tap water in Baltimore starts as surface water. City of Baltimore takes it from the Liberty Reservoir, Loch Raven (Baltimore Pipe), and Susquehanna (Baltimore Pipe) and runs it through treatment before it reaches the mains. Treatment points named in EPA's facility list include Ashburton Filter Plant and Montebello Filter Plant 1 + 2. After treatment the water is held in 1 storage tank or reservoir, which is the buffer that keeps taps running for a few hours after a pump or main fails.

Why this matters when the water stops. Surface water needs a treatment plant running around the clock, so a plant shutdown, a raw-water pump failure or a long power cut at the plant can lower pressure across the whole service area, not just on one street. Boil water notices are more likely to be citywide after that kind of failure than after a single main break.

What causes water outages and low pressure in Baltimore

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

• Freezing weather. Baltimore sees about 100 days a year with a low at or below 32°F, and 18 days at or below 20°F. The coldest morning in the 2015 through 2025 record came on March 6, 2015. The longest stretch with highs that never rose above freezing ran 14 days, ending January 8, 2018. 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. 75.8% of occupied homes in Baltimore 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.
• Long dry spells. The longest stretch without measurable rain since 2015 lasted 42 days, ending October 15, 2019. 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 20 flood, flash flood and heavy rain reports in Baltimore city from 2015 through 2026, and 7 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.
• Digging and utility work. Street projects, fiber installation and excavation near buried pipe regularly cut mains in Baltimore with no warning, usually on a day with perfectly ordinary weather.
• 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.

Baltimore weather and water-main stress, 2015–2025

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

Because this is gridded reanalysis data, individual hot and cold days can read a few degrees off what the airport recorded. The day counts and yearly patterns are the useful part.

Boil water advisories and the federal violation record for Baltimore

EPA lists 3 health-based violations for City of Baltimore since 2015. It also lists 30 monitoring or reporting entries that are about paperwork rather than water quality, such as a missed sample or a late report.

Most recent health-based entries:

• January 2026: Drinking water above the legal limit for total trihalomethanes
• September 2022: Drinking water above the legal limit for coliform bacteria It is marked resolved.
• January 2016: Drinking water above the legal limit for haloacetic acids It is marked resolved.

Boil water notices in Baltimore are precautions, not findings. When pressure drops, Baltimore City Department of Public Works 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 Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE).

What the lead tests and housing age say about Baltimore

The most recent 90th-percentile lead result filed for City of Baltimore is 2.7 ppb (2024). The federal action level is 15 ppb, so that result is comfortably below it.

The age of the housing matters more than the utility's test average: 75.8% of occupied homes in Baltimore predate 1970 and 1986 was the year lead pipe and solder were banned. Flush the cold tap after an outage and ask Baltimore City Department of Public Works whether your service line is on its lead inventory.

How long a water outage lasts in Baltimore

Most repairs of an ordinary main break in Baltimore 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 1,600,000 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.

Baltimore City Department of Public Works will post an estimated restoration time for a break that affects many customers; ask for the repair crew's estimate when you call.

How much water to keep on hand in Baltimore

With about 2.2 people in the typical Baltimore home, FEMA's one-gallon-per-person-per-day rule means 7 gallons covers three days and 31 gallons covers two weeks.

• 16.5% of residents report a disability (US 13.3%), so check on neighbors who rely on running water for medical equipment.
• 52.5% of households rent. Tell your landlord or property manager about a leak or outage right away, since the shutoff valve may be theirs.
• Your water heater tank holds 30 to 50 gallons of clean water. Turn off the power or gas to it first, then drain from the valve at the bottom.
• Fill a tub or large containers early for toilets, cleaning and handwashing, and store drinking water separately in clean bottles.

Water systems near Baltimore, side by side

Water outage pages for nearby cities

Bowie, MD · Rockville, MD · Gaithersburg, MD · Alexandria, VA