ATLANTA — After last week’s flooding, boil water advisory and fish kill, the Atlanta Department of Watershed Management is taking some fallout.
Now, City Council members want answers.
At a Tuesday utilities meeting at city council, council members grilled Water Commissioner Greg Eyerly over a series of problems related to a boil water advisory, sudden flooding and thousands of dead fish on the Chattahoochee River.
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Residents and business owners in Atlanta told Channel 2’s Berndt Petersen it was enough to make your blood boil.
Johnny Martinez, owner of Joystick Gamebar on Edgewood Avenue told Petersen that water is what his business, and any food spot, depend on to survive.
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“Any restaurant or bar, almost everything we do is impacted by water,” Martinez said. “I think most operators found out very late.”
He was talking about last week’s torrential downpours, the flooding, the fish kill, and a boil water order across downtown Atlanta.
“This is the second strike on us,” Atlanta City Council Member Alex Wan said at Tuesday’s meeting.
He and his colleagues had tough questions for Atlanta DWM and the city’s chief operating officer over how the water emergency was handled.
COO Lachandra Burks said the city’s staff were still working to figure things out.
“This occurred at 5 a.m.,” Council Member Liliana Bakhtiari said. “The public did not hear about a boil water advisory until about 9:30 or 10.”
Martinez told Channel 2 Action News he learned about it from his city council member. He said the Joystick crew had to rush to get water, get ice, re-clean the glassware, just so they could stay in business.
“If Atlanta wants to be a world class city, it needs world class infrastructure,” Martinez said. “That’s not what we have right now.”
Issues with the emergency alert system has some members of the Atlanta City Council nervous. They said the system needs to be on its toes soon, with the FIFA World Cup in Atlanta right around the corner.
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