Akron, Ohio Water Outage Today

Who runs the water in Akron: system profile

Akron City Public Water System is the water system EPA lists for Akron, serving about 280,000 people. Customers know it as Akron Water Supply; the name on your bill is the one to call.

Source water and treatment in Akron

Tap water in Akron starts as surface water. Akron City Public Water System takes it from rivers, lakes or reservoirs and runs it through treatment before it reaches the mains. After treatment the water is held in 14 storage tanks and reservoirs and pushed uphill by 13 pump facilities; that storage is the buffer that keeps taps running for a few hours after a pump or main fails.

The outage angle. 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.

Main breaks and shutoffs in Akron: the usual causes

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

• Freezing weather. Akron sees about 128 days a year with a low at or below 32°F, and 38 days at or below 20°F. The coldest morning in the 2015 through 2025 record came on January 31, 2019. The longest stretch with highs that never rose above freezing ran 19 days, ending March 2, 2015. 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. 73% of occupied homes in Akron 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.
• Storm-driven power loss. Thunderstorm wind, hail and tornado reports in Summit County number 190 since 2015. Pump stations and treatment plants that depend on Ohio Edison (FirstEnergy) run on the electric grid, so a storm that downs power lines can lower water pressure even when no pipe is damaged.
• Flooding and heavy rain. NOAA logged 21 flood, flash flood and heavy rain reports in Summit County from 2015 through 2026, and 4 days a year bring an inch of rain or more. High water can wash out the ground under buried pipe, flood pump stations and push treatment plants past their limits, which is why boil notices so often follow a flood.
• Digging and utility work. Street projects, fiber installation and excavation near buried pipe regularly cut mains in Akron with no warning, usually on a day with perfectly ordinary weather.
• One-address problems. A closed valve, a meter swap or a failed regulator can leave a single house dry. Compare notes with a neighbor first; if they have water too, start with your own plumbing.

Freeze, heat and rain: the Akron weather record

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

A note on the numbers: they are modeled for the city center and averaged over eleven years, so they show how often Akron sees each kind of weather, not what any one thermometer read on a given day.

Boil water advisories and the federal violation record for Akron

EPA lists 1 health-based violation for Akron City Public Water System since 2015. It also lists 3 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:

• July 2025: Drinking water above the legal limit for haloacetic acids It is marked resolved.

Boil water notices in Akron are precautions, not findings. When pressure drops, Akron Water Supply 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 Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA).

Lead, older pipes and water quality in Akron

The most recent 90th-percentile lead result filed for Akron City Public Water System is 2.7 ppb (2025). The federal action level is 15 ppb, so that result is well under it.

The age of the housing matters more than the utility's test average: 73% of occupied homes in Akron predate 1970 and 1986 was the year lead pipe and solder were banned. Flush the cold tap after an outage and ask Akron Water Supply whether your service line is on its lead inventory.

Restoration times for water outages in Akron

Most repairs of an ordinary main break in Akron 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 280,000 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 Akron Water Supply 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 Akron

The average household in Akron has about 2.2 people, so FEMA's minimum of one gallon per person per day comes to roughly 7 gallons for three days and 31 gallons for two weeks.

• 17.3% of residents report a disability (US 13.3%), so check on neighbors who rely on running water for medical equipment.
• 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 the bathtub and a few large pots as soon as you hear a break is likely; that water is for flushing and washing, not drinking.

How Akron compares with nearby water systems

Water outage pages for nearby cities

Canton, OH · Parma, OH · Cleveland, OH · Lorain, OH