I-Team: Security breach at Cleveland Water plant happened while guard was asleep
CLEVELAND (WJW) — The FOX 8 I-Team has found a car crashed through a fence at a Cleveland Water plant, but it went unnoticed because a guard was sleeping.
This comes to light after the I-Team has revealed other security breaches in the past where no one noticed.
At the heart of this is the safety of your water. The Cleveland Water system serves people throughout Northeast Ohio.
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The latest incident to come to light happened at the Nottingham Water Treatment Plant in Cleveland.
It happened back in February, and it took the city nearly five months to release records to the I-Team.
Records show someone paid to protect your water was caught sleeping on the job, but not until long after a car had crashed a fence.
We spoke to the driver who’d barreled through the fence.
“I just fell asleep and went straight through the fence,” he told us.
The file on the case includes grainy pictures, but no video.
Yet we found that driver was very clear in saying no guard came out after he crashed.
“But, nobody ever came. Nobody ever came. I’m gonna say it again. Nobody ever came,” he said.
On Wednesday, no supervisor came out to talk to us when we visited the Nottingham plant.
Records show the utility’s officer did not get fired. Instead, she got suspended for 10 days.
The disciplinary paperwork says, “… You were asleep inside the guard house.”
The final report shows the guard was finally jolted awake by a tow truck driver “knocking on the glass outside of the guard house in order to gain entry onto the property.”
The investigation also revealed the guard the city said had been sleeping never told a boss what had happened. We noticed it’s not marked in any paperwork; not mentioned in a daily duty log, or a visitors log or other documents.
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We shared this with west side activist Therese Pohorence.
“This is serious. This is serious,” she said.
Remember, in 2021 we found a Cleveland Water plant fence was down for days. Last year, a fence crash at a pumping station went unnoticed for hours.
“We need to have guards that are awake around the water plants because we have a whole bunch of people that we don’t know who they are. And who knows if they could be attacking our water plants?” Pohorence added.
The union for the utility’s officers is fighting the discipline.
Danielle Chaffin, an attorney with the Ohio Patrolman’s Benevolent Association, said the guard involved in this case denies she was asleep, and said the crash happened in an area not visible from the guard shack and that security cameras may not have been working.
Still, the driver involved told us he sat there an hour waiting to get towed away.
“Like I said, nobody, nobody came out the whole time we were there,” he said.
If you’re wondering how someone in that position can keep a job after something like this, officials with the water department did not return a request for comment.
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