more water woes

It's a good thing I use an excess of caution. Of three local news outlets, one is ignoring our water main break (because, after all, we're only the fourth most populous town in their broadcasting area and some story about baby otters in New Jersey is much more important), another one says the boil order ended Saturday, and a third is telling us we still need to boil through today.

(And yeah, I showered last night and washed my hair. I probably have an equal number of bacteria on my body as I would if I hadn't showered, if the third news site - the one I trust most, incidentally - is correct).

The city's facebook page has not been updated since 2 pm Saturday. I even caved in and signed up for Facebook so I could "log in" to see if there was any "secret" information that the uninitiated couldn't get access to. (There wasn't.)

And this morning? Our big new classroom building has no water. Not my building, not somewhere I teach, but still: I'm sure students will not be too happy about no bathroom access in there, and no drinking fountains. (If anyone but the faculty still use them; I refuse to spend a buck-fifty for a bottle of water or a bottle of sugar-water from the vending machines). And I think there are some faculty offices in the building. I'd refuse to hold office hours if my office was in a building with no functional bathrooms.

I don't know. If it were up to me and I knew for sure there was still a boil order on, I'd close campus for the day. Just out of an excess of caution.

But it gives me pause that a relatively minor emergency like this one has led to such a Keystone Kops response on the part of the local media, etc. I'd hate to see what happened in a real disaster.