Saint John boil order will last until Friday at least

45,000people in Saint John will be boiling their drinking water until Friday at least, because a chlorinator failed at the city's treatment facility early Monday morning.

The water commissioner thinks that was caused by recent power interruptions in the city.

A power outage at 5:30 a.m. did cause the back-up generator to kick in, as it should, but repeated power bumps since early Sunday may have been too much for one crucial piece of equipment at the Latimore Lake treatment plant.

"Our chlorinator, which is used to disinfect the water, did not automatically restart," said water commissioner Brent McGovern.

McGovern said now they have to wait until any compromised water is flushed from the system, which could taketwo days.

Then, the city will take samples two must come back clean, at least 24 hours apart.

The delay may be frustrating, but getting rid of the water in the system is important, because of the brief period when the chlorinator wasn't working, and nothing was zapping the bacteria that can cause illnesses.

"For those number of minutes that the chlorine wasn't available, those organisms could be going through the system and making you sick," said Dr. Isaac Sobol, regional medical officer of health.

That means an annoyance for some, a lot of extra work for others.

Paula Dobbelsteyn once again has pulled out her big pots and jugs.

As the owner of a special care home, she's responsible for the safety of 24 clients.

"You're busy,all day boiling water," she said. "All day storing. All day deciding is it going to be room temperature or keepin the fridge and there's only so much room in the fridge."

The city says its brand new water system is on track to be operational in late 2018, and it will have storage for 24 hours worth of city water use.

If there is a problem, the city will be able to switch to a safe supply, meaningfewer boil orders.