A boil water advisory has been in effect in Long Beach since Friday afternoon.
Nassau County schools have been closed after water samples tested positive for E. Coli and a student was diagnosed with a possible E. Coli infection.
Lindell Elementary, East Elementary and West Elementary have been closed out of caution. Administrators say they’re most concerned about not being able to ensure the proper hand washing by students that could possibly spread this bacteria.
It’s been a few days since Long Beach residents have had to take extra precautions after news broke out of E. Coli in the water.
“I dumped my ice out of the ice machine in my freezer and filled it with a bag of ice,” said Long Beach resident Rick Kaiser.
It usually takes about three days to show signs of E. Coli exposure. Symptoms can include diarrhea, abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting and fever.
“It’s a problem for me because I have an autoimmune disease so I have to be really careful,” said Long Beach resident Andrea Kaiser.
A boil water advisory was immediately put into effect. The State Office of Emergency Services provided more than 100,000 bottles of water.
Nassau County Executive Laura Curran addressed this issue saying, “Long Beach has already raised the chlorine level. They raised it immediately and are currently flushing out the entire water system.”
Continuing today, only boiled or bottled water should be used for drinking, brushing your teeth, or preparing food.
“We have to throw out all the things that touched water. We had to boil water to cook with it. We used a lot of disposable things today because it was too much to wash everything,” said diner owner Katarina Langis.
But the timing of it all is especially bad for some businesses.
“Pride weekend is coming up. We were prepping for that and then this happens, so we have to make sure we have all our ducts in a row otherwise it could be a drastic loss,” said Langis.
The school year is scheduled to end on Wednesday. There is no indication that will change despite today’s closures.
