Amoeba fatigue

What if you lived in a city where boil orders happened so frequently that they barely held anyone's attention?

A precautionary boil water advisory has been issued for the east bank of New Orleans on Friday morning (July 24) after the Sewerage & Water Board's Carrollton Water Plant experienced a number of power surges, S&WB officials said.

"Residents in the affected area are advised not to drink, make ice, brush teeth, bathe or shower, prepare or rinse food with tap water unless it has been properly disinfected, until further notice," said a S&WB news release.

The New Orleans Recreation Development Commission announced that all New Orleans east bank pools are closed until further notice because of the advisory. The Behrman Pool on the West Bank is not affected.

That would be one exciting life, right? This is something like the fourth one of these we've had since 2010. This time it's Entergy's fault, possibly.

Water board officials blamed the advisory on Entergy power surges that caused interruptions in the water system's Claiborne and Panola pumping stations.

"Because of these Entergy Power surges, water pressure unexpectedly dropped to 20 pounds per square inch at the S&WB Carrollton WAter Plant for a few minutes and may have dropped below 15 psi in areas throughout the east bank water system," officials said.

The threshold established for a boil water advisory is 15 psi, they said.

The water board switched from power supplied by Entergy to its internal power production system at the water plant and by 3:20 a.m. had stabilized water pressure.

S&WB and Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals officials are now taking water samples across the east bank for testing.

Water back to full pressure at 3:20 am. Public alerted at 10:00 am. Everybody showered in amoebas this morning. But that's fine. We're used to it.