Splashy surface of water on pan

Here’s what you have to do when a boil water advisory is issued

Maybe you come from a place where you don't have to boil your water every six months. Here are the basics you need to know.

by Mary Staes | February 19, 2019

The news probably hit you as you were making it in to work this morning. It was like any regular Tuesday. You hopped in the shower, brushed your teeth, made your coffee. And then….

Jefferson Parish?! Isn’t this why you moved out of Orleans in the first place?!

Meanwhile, the rest of us on the Eastbank are pointing our fingers, laughing.

Maybe you come from a place where you don’t have to boil your water every six months. Here are the basics:

  • No, you don’t have to boil your bath water. Just don’t let it get up your nose (very, very important), because brain eating amoeba. We also don’t suggest drinking the shower water, or from the hose, if you’re under the advisory.

  • You don’t have to boil the water you give to Fifi and Fido either. Chances are they eat worse things off the ground everyday.

  • Please boil your water on the stove. The hot water out of your Keurig doesn’t count. ðŸ™„

  • Be prepared for the advisory to last at least a full 24-hours from when it’s announced. Water samples have to be collected and sent off to be tested, which most parishes say takes at least a day. So if the news hit in the morning morning, by that night the advisory won’t be lifted. Not until the next day is there hope, folks.

  • Most schools provide bottled water for kids, but if you’re worried, it doesn’t hurt to send them to class with a bottle of water just to be safe.

Welcome to South Louisiana! Don’t worry, by Mardi Gras you’ll be over water and into beer and liquor anyways.

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Mary Staes

Mary Staes

Mary Staes is Digital Content Lead for Very Local. She works with our freelancers and crafts content for our social media platforms and website. Before Very Local, she worked with CBS affiliate WWL-TV as a web producer and weekend assignment editor for about 4 years. She has also handled broadcast coverage for 160 Marine Reserve training facilities while she served as an active duty Marine. As a native New Orleanian, she takes being "very local" to heart. She loves being intertwined with the culture and figuring out how there are less than two degrees of separation between us all, whether we're natives or not.

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