RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- The City of Richmond is approaching the end of a long, dry week. After a winter weather-related power outage caused a malfunction at a water treatment facility in the city, residents have remained under a boil water advisory for days. As 8News continues to investigate the accumulating questions about accountability and miscommunication within the city, we're learning more about how one key state agency received delayed notification about the issue. Thursday, Jan. 9 drew attention to the communication issues that appeared to transpire during the preliminary response period. At a press conference, Mayor Danny Avula announced he wasn't formally briefed about Monday morning's crisis until about 1 o'clock that afternoon. 8News learned the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) also wasn't formally looped in until at least six hours later. The VDH Office of Drinking Water is supposed to hear about these types of issues as soon as they happen. ALL COVERAGE: Richmond Area Water Crisis "This should not have happened and we need to make sure that it doesn't happen again," said the office's director, Dwayne Roadcap, on Thursday. The agency plays a chief role in protecting Virginians' access to clean drinking water. "We regulate 2,860 public water systems in Virginia," Roadcap said. "As part of our regulation, we provide technical assistance, compliance and enforcement -- emergency preparedness." Dominion Energy confirmed the outage was reported at about 6 a.m. -- so why was this state partner not formally alerted about Monday morning's crisis until that afternoon? That question remains unanswered. "The expectation is that, when you have a significant service disruption or a problem that's going to impact service, you need to reach out to the Virginia Department of Health's Office of Drinking Water as quickly as possible," Roadcap said. PREVIOUS: Richmond Mayor says boil water advisory could be lifted by weekend Roadcap said his team brought in engineers and specialists as soon as they learned about the mess. He added that, shortly after, officials issued the boil advisory, which has remained in place since. "How long the city was trying to work through the problems before they reached out to our department? … I do not know that… those are questions for the city," Roadcap said. Keep in mind, the public wasn't informed until even later — around 4 p.m. on Monday. Avula has made himself available for multiple press conferences a day every day since the incident. However, because the city is essentially in crisis mode, it appears many of those unanswered questions will have to wait to be fully addressed until an "after-action report" is released. MORE: What happened at Richmond’s water treatment plant, causing widespread water crisis? "We are committed to doing a really rigorous and transparent after-action process to figure out what was the sequence of events," Avula told the press. That highly anticipated "after-action report" is expected to clear up some logistical details regarding this vast spectrum of trouble outlined throughout the week. In the meantime, Roadcap took time to address an additional concern — the more than 100-year-old water plant in question. "One side of the plant was built in 1924," Roadcap said. "The other side was built in 1950 -- so the structure is aged. What I can say is that [is] still not an excuse for the event that we experienced. There's a lot of water systems in the United States that have aged infrastructure there. Those systems are able to successfully operate in that kind of environment." Remember, the boil water advisory is still active across our region. Affected water supplies still need to go through a series of tests within each locality. That means if you're in Goochland County, for example, you need to wait for clearance from your local leaders — the Richmond updates do not apply to everyone, just those in the city and vice-versa.