Plan for Emergencies

Emergencies come in different sizes - from a pipe break causing a water quality issue on one street to an earthquake impacting all of San Diego County. Our focus, throughout an emergency, is maintaining a safe water supply and providing the critical information our customers need.

Water Supply
Backup power supplies at our water treatment plant and pump stations assure that we can continue treating and distributing water when the electrical grid goes down.

Emergency Operations Center (EOC)
Our EOC (emergency operations center), where we coordinate operations and communications with customers, agencies, and media run on solar power and a backup generator.

Shared Resources
Helix, other water agencies, and cities have shared resources agreements, so equipment and key people can be allocated where and when they are needed.

Text-Em-All
Helix's field operations, Geographic Information System (GIS), and customer service staff coordinate to quickly identify impacted customers and broadcast recorded phone messages to them using Text-Em-All's web-based software.

Website
A link on our homepage will take customers to a blog post continuously updated with critical information. We will respond to customers who submit questions and comments.

Twitter
We will continuously update Twitter with critical information and respond to customer questions.