Some Shepherdstown water customers are still simmering over a boil-water advisory issued over Thanksgiving weekend. Residents give town workers high marks in how quickly service was restored—“a great job,” was the frequent refrain. The complaints arise from customers who said they found out about the boil advisory days after service was restored, often from chance encounters with people on the street and not through any official channel.

Shepherd University President Suszanne Shipley found out on Monday morning from a town resident. “I was disappointed,” Shipley said. “We had people in the dorms and fans in town for the football game.” The staff at a nursing home outside town also found out from a local resident.

But Shepherdstown Mayor Lance Dom said that the university, local health facilities, and businesses were all notified according to existing protocol, but that alert did not always percolate through institutions that were notified. For example, Dom said that the chief of the Shepherdstown Fire Department had complained about not being notified, but that when the department dug a little deeper, they found that they had, indeed, been notified.

Dom said that once water service was restored, the town implemented its standard action plan under the current system. “With more than 3,000 water customers, we can’t call each one. We call the large number of ‘high risk’ places, such as restaurants, hospitals, and public institutions,” he said. Dom said that local television and radio stations were also alerted. “We do everything we can.”

Dom was knocked for not making a public announcement to the crowd gathered on German Street for the Christmas tree lighting on the Friday evening after Thanksgiving. There in the street many people were learning of the boil advisory for the first time from friends and neighbors. While Dom spoke and Santa was welcomed in Shepherdstown, cell phones were lighting up on German Street as some residents frantically called elderly relatives. “Mom, don’t drink the water! Don’t drink the water,” could be heard below the mayor’s remarks.

“I guess I’ll have to take a hit for that,” said Dom when asked why he did not make a public announcement, however awkward, at the event. “From the water department point of view, we know it was okay. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t think to make an announcement. I had already breathed a sigh of relief.”

If all goes according to plan, soon the town will no longer rely on the complex network of block captains, phone trees, and door knockers used to alert customers and residents. Beginning in January 2008, the town will implement a 911 emergency call system.

“From this point forward we’ve modernized ourselves,” said Dom. Every customer will get a form to fill out asking for a phone number and email address. An automated system will ensure that everyone is contacted. “It’s a fairly smart system,” said Dom. Depending on the level of usage, the system will cost between $1,200 and $2,000 a year to operate, according to Dom.

The Thanksgiving incident has had its humorous side, inspiring a number of jokes distributed through email chains, including one comparing Shepherdstown to a third world nation. The punch line: In a third world nation residents are told when there’s a boil advisory.

Dom and the town’s water customers alike hope that with a new alert system in place soon, the Thanksgiving 2007 advisory will be remembered as the last one in which there was any doubt about who has been notified.