Houston Chronicle reporters Emily Foxhall, Neena Satija, and Yulin Cheng recently interviewed attorney Jory Lange with The Lange Law Firm about  safety concerns after the entire city of Houston was placed on a boil water notice on Sunday, November 27.  

Lange specializes in cases involving food and water safety, including product recalls, food poisoning and contamination, Legionnaires’ disease, and more. The Houston Chronicle was looking into why the boil water notice was issued despite repeated claims from city officials that the water was likely safe, and why city leaders failed to communicate to the public in a timely fashion that the water pressure across the city had fallen below safe levels due to a brief power outage at one of Houston’s three main water purification plants.  

City leaders claimed that the only reason they issued the notice was because it was a requirement. At the time of the story’s publishing in the paper, the boil water notice was still in effect, and the water was still being analyzed for safety. Lange advised Houstonians to continue boiling their water until the advisory was officially lifted. 

“We’re all watching and waiting,” Lange told the Houston Chronicle. “But we’re in that in-between phase where we’ve had a low-pressure issue, which can create lots of problems. And we don’t yet have any definitive testing results.” 

Houston’s boil water notice was lifted as of Tuesday, November 29, after water samples provided to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality were declared safe for consumption.