VPM Daily Newscast: Jan. 7, 2025
The VPM Daily Newscast contains all your Central Virginia news in just 5 to 10 minutes. Episodes are recorded the night before.
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Here’s a recap of the top stories on the morning of Jan. 7, 2025:
City of Richmond under boil water advisory until further notice
Reported by VPM News’ Meghin Moore
Richmonders should boil water before consuming or using it and take steps to conserve water, the city announced Monday.
A power outage at a Richmond water treatment facility resulted in a pump failure, forcing the city to issue a boil water advisory until further notice.
At a press conference with the director of the city’s Department of Public Utilities, Mayor Danny Avula said the treatment plan was up and running on backup generators shortly after the power went out, but that the pump failure caused flooding at the facility and “impeded our ability to produce more water.”
City officials said they expected the boil advisory to last no more than 48 hours, but said that until it has been lifted, residents should not drink tap water for any reason and should boil any tap water necessary for cooking or cleaning.
How has the winter storm affected Central Virginia?
Reported by VPM News’ Dean Mirshahi
A major winter storm that has hit multiple states brought snow, sleet and freezing rain to Virginia, causing power outages, disrupting travel and leading to dangerous conditions that could potentially worsen.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin declared a state of emergency last Friday in anticipation of the storm, putting the Virginia National Guard on standby, and school systems and local government offices around Central Virginia closed Monday and Tuesday.
Dominion Energy’s outage map shows more than 8,500 customers without power across Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico counties and the City of Richmond as of 5:15 p.m. Monday.
Dominion expects all customers to have their power restored by 11 p.m. Tuesday, according to an update from the company on Monday. Additional crews have moved to the hardest hit areas in Central and Southside Virginia, the company said.
In other news:
- What to expect in Virginia's state legislative special elections (The Associated Press)
- Democratic legislators seek to delay Virginia's school accountability system (Richmond Times-Dispatch)*
- Fredericksburg on fast track to approve zoning for data center development (The Free Lance–Star)*
In case you missed it:
- Unsuccessful 8th District School Board candidate sues winner for defamation over October Facebook post (The Richmonder)
- Herrity, Salgado join race for Virginia lieutenant governor (The Washington Post)*
- 3 former Virginia Beach sheriff’s deputies charged with slaying inmate (The Virginian-Pilot)*
*This outlet utilizes a paywall.
