Saint John residents feeling effects of boil water order

Schools, homes, and now hospitals are feeling the effects of a boil water order in Saint John, which covers the entire city east of the Reversing Falls.

Until noon on Wednesday, the Saint John Regional Hospital had been running on its reservoir.

“It gives us a significant buffer of usually a day and half, to two days, of extra water,” says Saint John Hospital executive director Brenda Kinney.  “We don’t have to go on the city’s system.”

The City of Saint John declared the boil order for 45,000 customers east of the Reversing Falls on Monday after a chlorinator failure.

“The main impact we’ve had at the Saint John Regional, is with our endoscopy procedures,” says Kinney. “The cleaning of the scopes takes longer when we’re dealing with bottled water.”

Kinney says they did have a small number of cancellations on Wednesday, and that they expect to have more cancellations for Thursday, and potentially Friday if the boil order continues.

The hardest part for many is not having easy access to tap water.

The boil order isn’t only affecting hospitals, it has also taken a large toll on the service industry.

“For us, because we are a bar with a small menu and a lighter cliental, we just switched over to bottled water,” says restaurant owner Heather Campbell. “We’re using more of our sanitizing compounds, just trying to be more aware.”

As for hospitals, they’ll continue to bring in bottled water.

The city says the water testing is still underway, and the boil order is expected to be lifted on Friday.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Ashley Blackford.