Kids stayed home, neighbors pitched in and restaurants coordinated with public health officials on the first morning of a town-wide boil water order.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s after the Town of Jackson found bacteria in well water and issued an emergency order on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Testing is underway after the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed the presence of E. coli and ordered a mandatory advisory throughout the town. Public works director Johnny Ziem told the Jackson Hole Daily the issue was limited to one well that had been shut off for two weeks. But the town\u2019s disinfection system will remain down during testing.<\/p>\n
That process takes at least three days, meaning the earliest return to normalcy would be Sunday evening.<\/p>\n
It was the first such closure locals could remember in recent history.<\/p>\n
While Cowboy Coffee Co.\u2019s closure downtown left people wandering for a morning brew, workers boiled water for drip coffee at Snake River Roasting. Five tourist families surveyed by KHOL said they\u2019d sipped bottled water from their hotels and weren\u2019t too bothered.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re having a great time; what are we going to do, throw a fit?\u201d said tourist Helen Cook, of Missouri, as she headed out of the Bunnery Bakery and Restaurant with her family.<\/p>\n
Teton County Health Director Dr. Travis Riddell said the risk to public health is expected to be limited.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on what I know about the contamination scenario, it ought to be pretty low. But certainly more than zero,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
E. coli is likely an indicator of fecal matter in the town well, he said. The most likely scenario is that the pollutant was introduced in a \u201csmall amount\u201d during maintenance, he said, \u201crather than some massive contamination event.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the exposure is still having ripple effects throughout town.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a really big deal for hospitality, like restaurants and hotels,\u201d Riddell said. \u201cSo there are specific guidelines for those types of groups we\u2019re working on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Direct alerts to people\u2019s phones sent waves of shoppers to gas stations and grocery stores in search of water, which quickly sold out. Even seltzer supplies were running low by Thursday evening.<\/p>\n
Jacob Dodd hoisted Madeline Heron on top of his shoulders to grab the last two water bottles from the top shelf at Albertson\u2019s around 9:30 p.m. on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t used that technique in a long time, but you know, it came in handy,\u201d Dodd said.<\/p>\n
School officials planned to meet Friday at 2 p.m. to make plans for next week. St. John\u2019s Health remains open and fully operational. An environmental health worker for the town said testing was ongoing and updates would be posted to JacksonWy.gov.<\/p>\n
Despite the chaos in grocery stores reminiscent of COVID-era runs on toilet paper, many also jumped into action.<\/p>\n
Residents in Rafter J and Victor offered water from alternative systems, as did folks making the drive back from Idaho Falls. Element Plumbing is offering access to a UV disinfectant water station until 5 p.m. on Friday. Lad Lanier of Arkansas said that when his son\u2019s wedding reception reservation was canceled late Thursday night, his family went to Corsa in Teton Village, which operates on a different water system and stayed open late for their big night.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey even did a menu with their names on it already printed; it was unbelievable,\u201d Lanier said.<\/p>\n
Riddell tried to strike a note of calm.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a scarcity mindset that sort of strikes in these situations,\u201d he said. \u201cBut fortunately, the vast majority of us have the means to boil water, and it might be more lukewarm than you\u2019d prefer, but no one\u2019s going to die of dehydration here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kids stayed home, neighbors pitched in and restaurants coordinated with public health officials on the first morning of a town-wide boil water order. That\u2019s after the Town of Jackson found bacteria in well water and issued an emergency order on Thursday night. Testing is underway after the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed the presence of E.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[6720,6718,6716,6719,6717],"class_list":["post-31508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wyoming","tag-wyoming","tag-wyoming-dining","tag-wyoming-food","tag-wyoming-grocery-stores","tag-wyoming-restaurants"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117334003121942224","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}