Miami Herald Logo

Broward’s boil water warning extended through Saturday | Miami Herald

×
  • E-edition
  • Home
    • Site Information
    • Contact Us
    • About Us
    • Herald Store
    • RSS Feeds
    • Special Sections
    • Advertise
    • Advertise with Us
    • Media Kit
    • Mobile
    • Mobile Apps & eReaders
    • Newsletters
    • Social
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Google+
    • Instagram
    • YouTube

    • Sections
    • News
    • South Florida
    • Miami-Dade
    • Broward
    • Florida Keys
    • Florida
    • Politics
    • Weird News
    • Weather
    • National & World
    • Colombia
    • National
    • World
    • Americas
    • Cuba
    • Guantánamo
    • Haiti
    • Venezuela
    • Local Issues
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health Care
    • In Depth
    • Issues & Ideas
    • Traffic
    • Sections
    • Sports
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Pro & College
    • Miami Dolphins
    • Miami Heat
    • Miami Marlins
    • Florida Panthers
    • College Sports
    • University of Miami
    • Florida International
    • University of Florida
    • Florida State University
    • More Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Auto Racing
    • Fighting
    • Golf
    • Horse Racing
    • Outdoors
    • Soccer
    • Tennis
    • Youth Sports
    • Other Sports
    • Politics
    • Elections
    • The Florida Influencer Series
    • Sections
    • Business
    • Business Monday
    • Banking
    • International Business
    • National Business
    • Personal Finance
    • Real Estate News
    • Small Business
    • Technology
    • Tourism & Cruises
    • Workplace
    • Business Plan Challenge
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Cindy Krischer Goodman
    • The Starting Gate
    • Work/Life Balancing Act
    • Movers
    • Sections
    • Living
    • Advice
    • Fashion
    • Food & Drink
    • Health & Fitness
    • Home & Garden
    • Pets
    • Recipes
    • Travel
    • Wine
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Dave Barry
    • Ana Veciana-Suarez
    • Flashback Miami
    • More Living
    • LGBTQ South Florida
    • Palette Magazine
    • Indulge Magazine
    • South Florida Album
    • Broward Album
    • Sections
    • Entertainment
    • Books
    • Comics
    • Games & Puzzles
    • Horoscopes
    • Movies
    • Music & Nightlife
    • People
    • Performing Arts
    • Restaurants
    • TV
    • Visual Arts
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Jose Lambiet
    • Lesley Abravanel
    • More Entertainment
    • Events Calendar
    • Miami.com
    • Contests & Promotions
    • Sections
    • All Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Op-Ed
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Jim Morin
    • Letters to the Editor
    • From Our Inbox
    • Speak Up
    • Submit a Letter
    • Meet the Editorial Board
    • Influencers Opinion
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Blog Directory
    • Columnist Directory
    • Andres Oppenheimer
    • Carl Hiaasen
    • Leonard Pitts Jr.
    • Fabiola Santiago
    • Obituaries
    • Obituaries in the News
    • Place an Obituary

    • Place an ad
    • All Classifieds
    • Announcements
    • Apartments
    • Auctions/Sales
    • Automotive
    • Commercial Real Estate
    • Employment
    • Garage Sales
    • Legals
    • Merchandise
    • Obituaries
    • Pets
    • Public Notices
    • Real Estate
    • Services
  • Public Notices
  • Cars
  • Jobs
  • Moonlighting
  • Real Estate
  • Mobile & Apps

  • el Nuevo Herald
  • Miami.com
  • Indulge

Broward County

Broward’s boil water warning extended through Saturday

By Jonathan Simmons

    ORDER REPRINT →

June 14, 2013 01:21 PM

Memorial Regional Hospital employees often tell patients about the benefits of drinking a good tall glass of water, but right now, they’re warning them of the risks.

Broward County’s boil water order has been extended through Saturday, and the signs over the hospital’s water fountains, coffee machines and ice-makers warning people not to use them will stay until it’s lifted, said Memorial Healthcare System spokeswoman Marla Oxenhandler.

For now, the hospital is breaking into its emergency water supply.

“It looks like what we see in hurricane mode,” said Chief Nursing Officer Maggie Hansen. “Big pallets of gallons of bottled water are stacked in the hallways.”

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

The boil water order was first issued Wednesday morning, after a routine monthly test found E. coli bacteria in one of eight county wells that supplies water to Hallandale Beach, Hollywood, Dania Beach, West Park, Pembroke Park, Pembroke Pines, Miramar, parts of Davie and unincorporated South Broward County.

More than 87,000 water customers are affected.

The county and various municipalities scrambled to alert residents and businesses, instructing them to use bottled or boiled water for drinking, cooking, washing fruits and vegetables, making ice, doing dishes and washing their hands.

Don’t plan on cleaning dishes in the dishwasher or using tap water in the coffee machine — neither piece of equipment gets hot enough to sterilize the water.

Even if you have a home water filter, the tap water should still be boiled for a full minute, or bottled water should be used.

And don’t think Fido is immune: Water given to pets should also be boiled or come from a bottle.

Bathing or showering is fine as long as the water stays out of your eyes and mouth. But be careful with young children that they don’t swallow water in the tub.

But if you missed the warnings and brushed your teeth with tap, you’re probably still safe, said county Water and Wastewater operations director Terry Karda.

“I would expect nobody to be sick,” he said. “Not from this.”

The contaminated well, five feet under the ground in Brian Piccolo Park in Cooper City, was filled with as-yet-untreated groundwater, said Karda.

It probably picked up the bacterium when heavy rains flooded parts of Broward County last Friday.

But that water would’ve been pumped through a multi-phase cleaning and filtering process in the county’s treatment plants, and then disinfected with chlorine, before it ever reached the faucets of a local home or business.

“If there’s no E. coli in the distillation system, then there’s no E. coli going into people’s homes,” Karda said. “Treated samples have all tested absent for E. coli. We’re really trying to be on the safe side, to make sure there’s not any chance our customers could be affected.”

Karda doesn’t live in an area under the boil water order, but if he did, he said, he’d still avoid tap until the order is lifted, just to be extra safe.

One of the reasons the boil-water order has dragged on so long, says Karda, is the bureaucracy surrounding getting it lifted.

For the tainted well to be cleared for use again, it will have to test clean two days in a row.

Each test takes 18 to 24 hours. The county first realized the water problem Tuesday evening but couldn’t do anything about it that night.

Then the well flunked a sanitation follow-up test Wednesday, so when the county got the results back Thursday, it decided to extend the order through Saturday.

“We’re going to have to rehab it or disinfect [the well],” Karda said. “There might be a cracked casing” or something else structural in that well that contributed to the problem.

Karda will know for sure after the health department inspects it Tuesday, but fixing the problem could take anywhere from three days to a month or so depending on what it is, he said.

For now, Karda said, the county has shut down the tainted well and isolated it from the rest of the water treatment system to avoid cross-contamination.

With the tainted well cut off, Broward County will very likely lift the boil water warning Saturday and just rely on the other seven wells.

But E. coli is one nasty critter, and the Florida Department of Health in Broward County is still urging people to be careful until the county gives the all-clear to go back to tap.

The bacterium lives in the lower gut, where it’s usually benign.

But if the wrong strain of it gets into someone’s body, said health department spokeswoman Dr. Paula Thaqi, it can cause fever, diarrhea, nausea, headaches and abdominal cramps.

It incubates anywhere from 6 hours to 10 days before it starts wreaking havoc, and can be especially dangerous for children, older people and people whose immune systems are already weak, she said.

Consumers with questions about the water supply should call the Broward County Water and Wastewater Service at 954-831-3250, or the Hallandale Beach Water Plant at 954-457-1632.

  Comments  

Videos

Woman removed from JetBlue flight after profanity-laced outburst

Parkland one year later

View More Video

Trending Stories

Haiti is once again on edge, and humanitarian aid groups debate whether to go or cancel

February 14, 2019 07:24 PM

He was robbed while mowing a lawn. He talked. Then 40 bullets were fired into his house

February 14, 2019 08:45 AM

Here’s Jimmy Johnson’s multi-step guide as the Dolphins begin their rebuilding program

February 14, 2019 03:05 PM

Hearts are heavy, attendance is light at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

February 14, 2019 09:05 AM

Dolphins sign former second-round defensive end and a young cornerback

February 15, 2019 03:30 PM

Read Next

What’s open and closed on Presidents’ Day in South Florida

South Florida

What’s open and closed on Presidents’ Day in South Florida

By Howard Cohen

    ORDER REPRINT →

February 15, 2019 04:56 PM

Monday is President’s Day. Here’s what is open and closed for the holiday. Stores and malls are open. Most courts, post office and libraries are closed. Public transportation in Miami-Dade, Broward is regular.

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE BROWARD COUNTY

‘It’s a true dive bar’: Stratford’s in Hollywood closing its doors after 81 years

Food & Drink

‘It’s a true dive bar’: Stratford’s in Hollywood closing its doors after 81 years

February 15, 2019 06:47 PM
Author of homophobic slur among 8 ousted in new Broward sheriff’s ongoing purge

Broward County

Author of homophobic slur among 8 ousted in new Broward sheriff’s ongoing purge

February 15, 2019 03:26 PM
Broward judge violated rules by advertising Democratic endorsement, commission says

Broward County

Broward judge violated rules by advertising Democratic endorsement, commission says

February 15, 2019 04:18 PM
South Florida cop sold police-issued semi-automatic weapons to pawnshop

Crime

South Florida cop sold police-issued semi-automatic weapons to pawnshop

February 15, 2019 01:36 PM
DeSantis lays flowers at Parkland memorial on one-year anniversary; hundreds attend vigil

Broward County

DeSantis lays flowers at Parkland memorial on one-year anniversary; hundreds attend vigil

February 14, 2019 06:32 PM
Hearts are heavy, attendance is light at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

Broward County

Hearts are heavy, attendance is light at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

February 14, 2019 09:05 AM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

Miami Herald App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Public Insight Network
  • Reader Panel
Advertising
  • Place a Classified
  • Media Kit
  • Commercial Printing
  • Public Notices
Copyright
Commenting Policy
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story