Lee County Utilities went from a clean map to a live precautionary boil water notice on Monday, after a 4 inch main break on Wittman Drive in the McGregor area south of Fort Myers, and the notice was still in force on Tuesday morning covering about fifty addresses
Lee County Utilities has one precautionary boil water notice in force this morning, on Wittman Drive in the McGregor area south of Fort Myers, and it is the first to go up since the county's map stood clean on Monday morning.
The county logged a 4 inch main break at 6953 Wittman Drive at 11.30 on Monday morning and created the record at 12.13 that afternoon. It covers 6896 through 6943 Wittman Drive, which is about fifty addresses.
The notice carries no lift date and has not been edited since it was created. By first light on Tuesday it had been in force about eighteen and a half hours.
It is the only one on the county system. A count run against the county's own notice map for records carrying no rescinded date returns exactly one, against a layer the same server confirms holds nine records in total. The other eight all carry a lift date.
That is a change from Monday. When this site read the same map at about half past four on Monday morning, every record on it carried a lift date and the county had nothing in force. The Wittman Drive record was created seven and a half hours later.
The ground is unincorporated Lee County. Addresses on Wittman Drive carry a Fort Myers mailing address, but the City of Fort Myers runs its own separate water system, and that system's map carries no active advisory.
Lee County Utilities states that a notice remains in effect until bacteriological testing confirms the water is safe to drink, and that the process typically takes 48 to 72 hours. Counted from the Monday morning incident stamp, that window runs to sometime between late Wednesday morning and late Thursday morning.
The utility also states why the notices go up at all. It issues one when water pressure in a main line drops below 20 psi, typically from a main break or during scheduled maintenance, in accordance with Florida Department of Environmental Protection guidelines, and it says the notice is precautionary and issued even where contamination has not been confirmed.
Residents inside the affected stretch should bring tap water to a rolling boil for at least one minute before drinking it, cooking with it, making ice with it, brushing their teeth with it or washing dishes with it, or use bottled water, until the county rescinds the notice.
Cape Coral is a different water system and its position is unchanged. Six areas were still live on the city's own map when it was read on Tuesday morning and none carries a lift date. All six have already been reported by this site.
Lee County Utilities customers who want to confirm their own status can call the county hotline on 239-533-8575, which the county says is available around the clock and updated daily by 4 p.m.
