A third Cape Coral neighbourhood went under a precautionary boil water notice on Monday morning after a water main break on SE 10th Avenue, and the 45.51 acre shape the city drew around it is the largest of the three areas now in force, while the notice issued on Friday has run into a fourth calendar day
Cape Coral has a third precautionary boil water notice in force. The city logged a water main break at 2213 SE 10th Avenue at 8.13 on Monday morning, with the service interruption stamped seven seconds later, and its active areas map carried the new record about an hour after that.
The shape the city drew is the largest of the three. It covers 45.51 acres, and its outline is a single six sided ring running north to south along the avenue, roughly 810 feet wide and 2,440 feet long, which places it between about SE 21st Street and SE 24th Street.
Cape Coral runs its own water system. It is separate from Lee County Utilities, which publishes a different map and which had nothing in force when this site checked it earlier on Monday, so a county wide all clear does not reach anyone inside these city shapes.
The instruction inside the area is the city's standard one. Residents are advised to bring water to a rolling boil for one minute before drinking it, cooking with it, washing their hands, making ice, brushing their teeth, washing dishes, rinsing raw foods or preparing any other drink, or to use bottled water instead. Showering and doing laundry are not restricted.
The city is equally direct that the notice is not a finding about the water. Its published guidance states that the State Department of Health requires a precautionary notice when a line break leaves the system at zero or negative pressure, and that one may also be issued when a main break causes pressure to drop below 20 psi or when routine samples show low disinfection residual. Asked on its own page whether this means the water is unsafe, the city answers no, and says the guidelines require the notice and that this does not always mean the drinking water is contaminated.
Two earlier areas remain active and neither carries a lift date.
The 42.83 acre shape around 909 Cape Coral Parkway West was logged at 7.22 on Sunday morning and has been in force about 26 hours. The 22.93 acre shape around 3622 SE 5th Court was logged at 10.45 on Friday morning, which puts it past 70 hours and into a fourth calendar day.
The city has published the reason a notice can run that long. Cape Coral states that it must receive two consecutive days of clear laboratory results before it can issue a rescission, that the Lee County Health Department does the testing, and that clearance in most cases can take several days. It adds that a break occurring from Thursday evening through Sunday evening can take even longer, because the laboratory is closed on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.
Both of the older breaks fall inside that window. Monday morning's break does not. The city has not published an expected lift date for any of the three, and none is offered here.
Cape Coral also notes that precautionary notices are issued almost every week and that most of the breaks behind them affect small, isolated areas.
Anyone checking their own status should note that these notices are applied by mapped shape rather than by street name, so an address just outside a boundary is not covered and one inside it is, whatever street the break itself happened on.
