Since apparently everyone has heard of it already, I suppose I should say something about the situation in Toledo this past weekend. First of all, they tell me it’s over already, and second I live about 40 miles away from the effected area. Still, I wouldn’t say it had no impact – far from that …
I work second shift, I didn’t get up until about 11 AM that day. My stepmother and stepsister were in the living room discussing it in some vague terms, so while I knew something was up with the water in Toledo I had no real idea what. I get to work at 1 PM and quickly find out there is no bottled water left in the store – and also the first customers I encounter are 3 separate people from Toledo trying to figure out how far they’ll have to drive to get some. One of them says Beaverdam (10 miles south) is also out … but Beaverdam is little more than a couple of truckstops – no major stores, and really just a small town (which is to say, they wouldn’t have much water in stock anyway). Lima is even bigger than we are and only a few miles further, they decide it’s worth a try.
Cindi (grocery supervisor of some sort – she’s not over me as she’s in “dry grocery” and I’m in fresh foods) tells me they requested 4 truckloads of water and that 2 have already showed up (and were obviously all gone already) but two more were still coming. She also tells me they initially ran out of water at 8 AM!
I know Marlene (the lady who hands out free samples and coupons) has relatives in the Toledo area, so I asked her about it. She indicated her mother got a call at 5:30 AM telling her not to drink the water, that even boiling it would not remove the problem – in fact, it would make it worse since you’d be concentrating the chemical. They also advised not to bathe small children in it. Her mother got a second call later from the Agency on Aging (the group charged with making sure older people are properly cared for) to make sure she got the warning. We briefly discuss water filters (I mention that those activated charcoal filters don’t remove everything – the only way to be really sure would be a reverse osmosis system) but of course we both have to get to work.
Over the course of the day, I manage to piece the story together. Toledo water comes from Lake Erie. Of course they treat it and filter it to keep out various bad stuff, but the system can’t handle too much toxin of the type produced by algae (similar to the type of algae that cause red tide). An algae “bloom” can kill all the fish in an area, and ironically the dead fish can deplete the oxygen in the water (ironic since algae produce oxygen, but not enough) … and the toxin can also make people sick, and even kill smaller animals if they drink enough of it.
Anyway, the third truck arrives at about 4:30. Apparently people in Toledo must have gotten there act together by then (with some help from the National Guard setting up a water purification system, and probably stores in Toledo doing the same thing we did) as that water lasts the rest of my shift – I gather the fourth truck showed up after I left.
Sunday wasn’t quite as bad … we did sell more water than usual, but we didn’t run out. I suppose it is worth noting that we didn’t get any of the gallon jugs of water in either day – only the multi-packs of those half-liter (16.9 ounce) plastic bottles. And I had Monday off – other than the news reports I can’t say what that was like.
On the one hand, we did get more business out of it than a typical weekend … they didn’t just buy water while they were in the store. But I’m still not sure how anyone can really handle water for 400,000 people for any length of time.
