Arlington Water Utilities staff recently turned to the City of Arlington’s network of remotely read water meters to help find water line breaks and aid in the community-wide recovery from February’s winter storm.
More than 76,000 Arlington Water Utilities customers have remotely read water meters, which is about two-thirds of water customers. More new meters being installed each month as part of the Advanced Metering Infrastructure, or AMI, project. The remotely read meters run off of batteries that report back to a central cloud-based computer network. As power was restored during the winter weather event and water usage data became available, Water Department supervisors began to look at ways they might use that data to aid citizens.
“Our department is using every available resource to help those affected by the winter weather that occurred during the week of Feb. 15. Remote read meter data is playing a vital role in water department storm recovery and in our collaborative partnerships with other City departments,” said Arlington Water Utilities Director Craig M. Cummings.
Here are some of the ways the remote read data was utilized:
• Starting Thursday, Feb. 18, the City of Arlington used data from remotely read water meters to address private plumbing breaks that had not been discovered. Meter data was isolated to show addresses with unusually high continuous water use for the previous 48 hours, using a threshold that is far higher than dripping faucets would cause. Those addresses, which totaled about 1,800, were cross-referenced with addresses where the department had already been asked to shut off water. If no contact had been made previously, the department reached out by phone or in person to the customer to make sure there are no unattended breaks that could harm property and waste water. Those lists were rerun over the following week to continue customer outreach.
• Arlington experienced a city-wide water pressure drop on Feb. 17 that required a precautionary boil water alert. Water service was restored to normal levels throughout the city by the morning of Friday, Feb. 19, and the boil alert was lifted on Saturday, Feb. 20. Still, many residents at apartment complexes reported that apartment management would not turn water back on until repairs were made in other areas of their properties. To help determine which apartments were not able to provide water, the City queried data from its system on apartments with no water usage or since Feb. 19. That data showed that about 4,800 apartment households at 47 complexes were likely without water.
The department was able to use this data to help Arlington Code Enforcement deploy field personnel for investigations of “no water” complaints at multi-family sites. It also helped the Water Department determine where to set up water container filling stations throughout the city.
• Many of the private water lines that froze and burst were part of fire suppression systems. Since these fire sprinkler lines are typically larger than other plumbing lines, breaks can cause extensive damage and use large amounts of water quickly. As recovery efforts continued, the City used its remote read meter data to looks at commercial addresses with fire suppression lines where usage had been unusually high. They found more than 200 addresses with fire line usage that indicated a break, including a junior high school, a downtown nightclub and a manufacturing plant that had all used more than 15,000 gallons of water in the past week. Contact was made with businesses where they use was still being registered. The list was also shared with the Arlington Fire Department so that department could know which system may be undergoing repairs.
For more information about Arlington Water Utilities, please visit www.ArlingtonTx.gov/water. To learn more about how the City of Arlington is putting data to improve service to residents, please visit www.ArlingtonTX.gov.
Data in Action, Put Technology to Work, Winter Storm
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