BOIL WATER NOTICE LIFTED BUT...

As many of you saw on Friday's post, we had a boil water notice for all of Houston.  Millions of people had to boil water.  It lasted through NOON on Saturday when the city finally lifted it.

Here is the notice sent to Houstonians:

ALERTHOUSTON

CITY OF HOUSTON LIFTS BOIL WATER NOTICE 

Information

The City of Houston has lifted the boil water notice that has been in place since Thursday, February 27, 2020. Customers no longer need to boil water used for drinking, cooking and making ice. Water quality testing submitted to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has confirmed that tap water meets all regulatory standards and is now safe to drink.

On February 27th, TCEQ required Houston Water to issue a boil water notice for the City of Houston’s Main Water System (TX1010013), and inform customers, individuals, or employees that due to conditions which occurred recently in the public water system, the water from this public water system was required to be boiled prior to use for drinking water or human consumption purposes.

Houston Water has taken the necessary corrective actions to restore the quality of the water distributed by this public water system used for drinking water or human consumption purposes and has provided TCEQ with laboratory test results that indicate that the water no longer requires boiling prior to use as of Saturday, February 29, 2020 at 12:00pm.

Next Steps

Customers should flush their water system by running cold-water faucets for at least one minute, cleaning automatic ice makers by making and discarding several batches of ice, and running water softeners through a regeneration cycle. Please share this information with all the other people who drink this water, especially those who may not have received this notice directly (for example, people in apartments, nursing homes, schools, and businesses).

We thought everything would be back to normal and almost 48 hours with a boil water notice wasn't too bad of an experience.  

Then our apartment building management sent this to all the residents:

Dear residents,

As of today the city has lifted the boil water notice for the water supply. This is a result of the water tests coming back satisfactory. In an overabundance of caution we plan to purge our water system on Monday, March 2, 2020.  This requires the water supply to the entire building to be shut off for approximately 90 minutes.  We have scheduled our water reservoir purge for 10:30 A.M., Monday, March 2, 2020.  Water should be restored at 12:00 P.M. 

It is our recommendation that until then you avoid drinking tap water in case the reservoir contains any bacteria.  It is perfectly safe to shower, wash your hands, etc.  Once the purge is complete on Monday, for added caution, we ask that you do the following:

1. Run your kitchen faucet for 15 minutes

2. Discard all ice from your freezer

3. Change your refrigerator water filter

Thanks for your patience in this matter.

So...we have had to stay on bottled water all weekend.  It's been an interesting experience to say the least and we have an all new respect for fresh water.  We didn't boil because we had some water that we normally have on hand (for the coffee maker and some hurricane prepping cases of bottled water).  We used that for brushing our teeth, for cooking, drinking, etc.  Then while I was at the farm Saturday I filled up some one gallon containers with water from the taps there.  Also had some water bottles that we had saved from the last day or so and I filled those up as well.

Of course they always say not to let your pets drink the water either so we used the bottled water at first and then the well water from the farm for Hobart.  He's loving drinking it.  We just hope when we're back to normal he doesn't turn up his nose after having fresh well water from the country, ha.

Thanks for all your tips and well wishes.  It's been an eye opening experience for us.  We won't EVER be without some water as a backup.  In the back of the closet, under the bed, wherever, it's good to have some fresh water because, as almost 3 million people learned a few days ago, things can change in an instant.  Not having fresh water is kind of frightening.