Boil water order in effect in Scituate after bacteria detected

A warning went out to Scituate, Massachusetts, residents on Friday afternoon that E. coli might be present in their town water. Now all water needs to be boiled or bottled until further notice. 

Do not drink the water, is a message spread across the town after a water sample collected on Tuesday tested positive for E. coli. A second sample was taken and that one came back positive for a different bacterium Friday. So now, a boil water order is in effect until further notice. 

"We have people coming over this weekend and just in general cooking that needs to be done and day to day life of having some clean water," one Scituate resident shared.

Water must be boiled for at least one minute to be considered safe. Or if you can find some, many opted for bottled water. 

"We had to go all the way to Quincy, so that's three or four supermarkets away to find water. And the lines were Thanksgiving level lines," the resident said.

"I contacted one of our other managers to grab soda, water, sparkling water, bottles of water all of that," Mill Wharf general manager Nicholas Leeping said.

It's not quite business as usual at Mill Wharf, a waterfront restaurant, but Leeping and his staff are doing their best to make sure customers are still served. 

"It was a lot of chaos trying to figure out what was going on, how to put together a game plan to stay open," Leeping said. "Tell all of our staff that they can't use anything from the soda gun, can't use anything from our ice machine and obviously the tap water."

And it wasn't just a regular dinner rush the staff had to accommodate. The restaurant also hosted a rehearsal dinner for a wedding. 

"This was pretty shocking especially middle of the shift, middle of the day, we had a rehearsal dinner upstairs that we had to set up for. All of our ice, all our water was set up. Obviously, we had to dump all of that," Leeping explained.

Scituate town officials are flushing hydrants and performing repeat water sample tests. But it's unclear when the boil water order will be lifted.

The town is giving out free cases of water in the parking lot of Cole Parkway from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. Residents are allowed to take two cases per household.