Broken Arrow, Oklahoma Water Outage Today

Broken Arrow water system at a glance

Broken Arrow Municipal Authority is the water system EPA lists for Broken Arrow, serving about 116,330 people. Customers know it as City of Broken Arrow Utilities; the name on your bill is the one to call.

What feeds the taps in Broken Arrow

Tap water in Broken Arrow starts as surface water. Broken Arrow Municipal Authority takes it from the Verdigris River and runs it through treatment before it reaches the mains. Treatment points named in EPA's facility list include Broken Arrow New WTP. After treatment the water is held in 6 storage tanks and reservoirs, which is the buffer that keeps taps running for a few hours after a pump or main fails.

What this means in an outage. 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.

Why the water goes out in Broken Arrow

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

• Freezing weather. Broken Arrow sees about 67 days a year with a low at or below 32°F, and 11 days at or below 20°F. The coldest morning in the 2015 through 2025 record came on February 16, 2021. The longest stretch with highs that never rose above freezing ran 10 days, ending February 18, 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.
• Flooding and heavy rain. NOAA logged 189 flood, flash flood and heavy rain reports in Tulsa County from 2015 through 2026, and 11 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 Tulsa County number 659 since 2015. Pump stations and treatment plants that depend on Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO) run on the electric grid, so a storm that downs power lines can lower water pressure even when no pipe is damaged.
• Summer demand. Broken Arrow has about 24 days a year at or above 95°F and 9 at or above 100°F, and the hottest day in the record came on July 19, 2022. 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.
• Younger pipe, different risks. Only 7.6% of occupied homes in Broken Arrow predate 1970 (US 35.5%), so more of the network is newer plastic or ductile iron. Breaks tend to come from construction damage, pressure surges and weather rather than age.
• Digging and utility work. Street projects, fiber installation and excavation near buried pipe regularly cut mains in Broken Arrow with no warning, usually on a day with perfectly ordinary weather.

Freeze, heat and rain: the Broken Arrow weather record

Main break season in Broken Arrow 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 Broken Arrow

Since 2015, EPA's record for Broken Arrow Municipal Authority shows no health-based violations.

Boil water notices in Broken Arrow are precautions, not findings. When pressure drops, City of Broken Arrow Utilities 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 Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).

Lead, older pipes and water quality in Broken Arrow

The most recent 90th-percentile lead result filed for Broken Arrow Municipal Authority is 2 ppb (2025). The federal action level is 15 ppb, so that result is comfortably below it.

7.6% of occupied homes in Broken Arrow 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 Broken Arrow Utilities about its lead service line inventory.

How long a water outage lasts in Broken Arrow

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

City of Broken Arrow Utilities 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 Broken Arrow

The average household in Broken Arrow has about 2.7 people, so FEMA's minimum of one gallon per person per day comes to roughly 8 gallons for three days and 37 gallons for two weeks.

• A standard water heater is a ready-made 40-gallon reserve. Shut off its power or gas, open a hot tap somewhere in the house, and draw from the drain valve.
• 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 Broken Arrow compares with nearby water systems

Water outage pages for nearby cities

Tulsa, OK · Fort Smith, AR · Fayetteville, AR · Oklahoma City, OK