High Point, North Carolina Water Outage Today

Who runs the water in High Point: system profile

Federal records name City of High Point as the public water system for High Point, with about 118,662 people on its mains. Customers know it as City of High Point Public Services; the name on your bill is the one to call.

Source water and treatment in High Point

Tap water in High Point starts as surface water. City of High Point takes it from City Lake and Oak Hollow Lake and runs it through treatment before it reaches the mains. After treatment the water is held in 7 storage tanks and reservoirs, 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. 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. EPA lists 4 emergency connections to neighboring systems, which can be opened to move water across a boundary during a failure.

Main breaks and shutoffs in High Point: the usual causes

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

• Freezing weather. High Point sees about 67 days a year with a low at or below 32°F, and 6 days at or below 20°F. The coldest morning in the 2015 through 2025 record came on February 20, 2015. The longest stretch with highs that never rose above freezing ran 8 days, ending January 7, 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.
• Flooding and heavy rain. NOAA logged 70 flood, flash flood and heavy rain reports in Guilford County from 2015 through 2026, and 8 days a year bring an inch of rain or more. Floodwater can undercut pipe crossings, swamp pump stations and overload treatment plants, and a notice to boil water often follows when it enters the system.
• Storm-driven power loss. Thunderstorm wind, hail and tornado reports in Guilford County number 232 since 2015. Pump stations and treatment plants that depend on High Point Electric 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.
• Scheduled work, or a fault inside your own home. Utilities warn customers before a planned shutoff. If nothing was announced and the neighbors are fine, the cause is probably your shutoff valve, meter or pressure regulator.

Freeze, heat and rain: the High Point weather record

Main break season in High Point 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.

Is High Point water safe? Boil notices and EPA record

EPA lists 1 health-based violation for City of High Point since 2015. It also lists 2 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 2025: A treatment technique violation under the surface water treatment rules It is marked resolved.

Boil water notices in High Point are precautions, not findings. When pressure drops, City of High Point Public Services 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 North Carolina DEQ Public Water Supply Section.

What the lead tests and housing age say about High Point

The most recent 90th-percentile lead result filed for City of High Point is 0 ppb (2025). The federal action level is 15 ppb, so that result is well under it.

28.9% of occupied homes in High Point 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 City of High Point Public Services about its lead service line inventory.

When will the water come back on in High Point?

Most repairs of an ordinary main break in High Point take half a day once the crew is on site. Bigger mains, deep bury and busy roads stretch that to a day or more.

Ask City of High Point Public Services 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 High Point

With about 2.5 people in the typical High Point home, FEMA's one-gallon-per-person-per-day rule means 8 gallons covers three days and 35 gallons covers 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.
• Fill a tub or large containers early for toilets, cleaning and handwashing, and store drinking water separately in clean bottles.

High Point versus neighboring water utilities

Water outage pages for nearby cities

Greensboro, NC · Winston-Salem, NC · Durham, NC · Charlotte, NC