Ode to H2o..

All day I face the barren waste without the taste of water,
Cool water.
Old Dan and I with throats burned dry and souls that cry for water,
Cool water.

The night are cool and I'm a fool each stars a pool of water,
Cool water.
But with the dawn I'll wake and yawn and carry on to water,
Cool water.
(-Sons of the Pioneers-)

As I posted yesterday, and as King has also posted, St. Cloud is under a drinking water warning due to the presence of e coli bacteria (the kind that will make you lose weight, really fast). There is a big hubbub right now in St. Cloud (and rightly so, IMO) regarding the lack of communication that led to the warning come out so late during the day. It appears that the water tested positive for e coli bacteria this past Saturday the 18th, as well as Sunday Feb 19th. Word has it that the area nursing homes and hospitals allegedly were warned around 5pm on Monday the 20th, but the general public was not informed until around 7pm. And even then, efforts to get the word out appeared paltry, at best. Announcements were put over Cable Channel 19 (the city information channel that nobody ever really watches).. Even the St. Cloud police department was reportedly unaware of the threat until after they started receiving phone calls from the public regarding same.

At any rate, the timeline between discovery of the bacteria and the alerting of the public suggests that the general public had the possibility of being unknowingly exposed to the bacteria since at least Saturday, and they weren't informed until Monday night.

The City of St. Cloud has some serious 'splainin' to do regarding this time lapse, especially at a time when public safety was at stake.

The "good" that hopefully come from this (as in all bad situations) is that lessons will be learned. There is quite evidently a need for better communication to take place in times of a health emergency, which has every bit a chance of happening during weekends and holidays as it does during 9-5 business hours.



(Filed under miscellany)