It was determined late Friday the boil water advisory, issued Thursday evening, was actually a false reading — the result of contamination at a lab in London — but it flushed out weaknesses in the city’s communication strategies.

Four hours may not seem like an excessive amount of time, but when you’re dealing with the potential of an E. coli outbreak, it might as well be an eternity.

City engineering staff knew about the suspect water sample at around 3:40 p.m. on Thursday, however the first notice went up on the city website at 7:40 p.m., when Elgin St. Thomas Public Health released details of the boil water advisory.
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