Aqua Texas Advises Coastal And East Texas Customers To Boil Water If They Lose Water Due To Hurricane Ike

Main Category: Water - Air Quality / Agriculture
Also Included In: Nutrition / Diet;  Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses;  Aid / Disasters
Article Date: 16 Sep 2008 - 5:00 PDT

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Aqua Texas (Aqua) wants all of its customers to be aware that any power outages caused by Hurricane Ike could result in the loss of water service. Aqua will restore water and wastewater service as quickly as possible, but service may be intermittent if it is necessary to rely on emergency generators. Aqua offers the following precautions to all of its customers:

- If a community loses water service or power: As a precautionary measure when service is restored, Aqua advises residents to boil water used for drinking, cooking or other purposes when it might be ingested until they are notified that the boil water advisory is lifted. This would include water used for brushing teeth, washing vegetables, making ice or washing dishes without a mechanical dishwasher. Customers should bring water to a rolling boil, let it boil for two minutes to ensure the destruction of any harmful bacteria or other organisms, and let it cool before consumption, or use bottled water. Aqua will test the water to ensure that no contamination took place during repairs, and customers will be notified when it is no longer necessary to boil the water. Should any customers experience significantly low pressure, they also should boil their water until instructed otherwise by Aqua.

- Customers with automatic sprinkler systems should turn them off so that they don't drain water tanks when power is restored.

Aqua was informed Friday by the City of Nederland in Jefferson County, Texas, that the city planned to shut down its water treatment plant in preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Ike. Aqua customers in the Countryside subdivision also lost water service because Aqua supplies water to these customers from the City of Nederland. Although the city has not indicated when it might bring the plant back on line, when water service does resume, customers will need to boil their water until instructed otherwise by Aqua or the City of Nederland.

Aqua provides water and wastewater service to about 100 systems throughout the projected path of Hurricane Ike. http://www.aquatx.com

Aqua will have emergency personnel on standby throughout the weekend. Customers can call Aqua's customer service department at 877.987.2782 with any issues or concerns.

A list of the counties in which Aqua Texas operates water and wastewater systems that might be affected by Hurricane Ike follows:

Brazoria
Camp
Chambers
Cherokee
Fort Bend
Gregg
Grimes
Harris
Henderson
Jefferson
Katy
Liberty
Marion
Montgomery
Orange
Polk
San Jacinto
Smith
Trinity
Wharton
Wood

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