FORT MYERS, Fla. — Fort Myers is still under a city-wide boil water notice, a notice that was issued Saturday.
The notice comes after a water main break caused areas throughout the city to lose water or have low water pressure. Areas that include downtown restaurants.
"Nothing detrimental. But just little things that make our jobs just a bit more difficult.”
Jobs made difficult as a boil water notice hits downtown Fort Myers.
"People are very weary about that stuff, especially in downtown where a lot of the clientele are going drinking- whether it’s alcohol or kava or kratom,” said Kalli Martin, Kavatender at Downtown Fort Myers Kava Culture.
Like at Kava Culture, where it’s affecting their typical work flow.
“All of our drinks are made with water," says Martin. "We go through tons of brews a day of kava and kratom so it definitely makes the brewing process here a bit more difficult. Just making sure the water is not contaminated for our guests and everything.”
The water main break happened in North Fort Myers off Edison Avenue and Rockfill Road. The city says the exact source of the break was a puncture to a 12-inch water line that supplied water to a major 42-inch water main. Putting the entire city under a boil water notice.
"We always make it work," said Martin. "We made it work after the hurricane without any problems. It’s just paying more attention to the details, making sure that we’re doing everything more on point than usual. Just because we don’t want any of our guests to get sick here.”
The water main services a large part of the city, including downtown and it's restaurants like Downtown House of Pizza. Where they say it’s affecting the way they make their pizza dough.
"Usually when it’s not as busy, we’ll boil water on our little stove on a flattop," said Ryan Waters, manager of Downtown House of Pizza. "But to keep up with the demand we have to use the water bottles as it’s slowing us down to boil water.”
But it’s not anything this crew isn’t used to already.
"We went through this with Ian for almost, I think, under two weeks so it wasn’t too bad of a jump as everybody’s used to it.”
The city says testing of the water has begun for 48 hours. If tests are clean, the notice should be lifted by Monday night or Tuesday morning. In the meantime, businesses like Kava Culture say they’re prepared.
"If it’s lengthened, we all know what to do here so that we still can serve our guests in a healthy way," says Martin. "I’m not too worried about the length of it. It would be nice if it was real quick fix but I know how those things work out.”
