Iron Mountain businesses suffered during water boil alert.
IRON MOUNTAIN -- The water boil advisory in Iron Mountain has been lifted, but the effects already have been felt by residents and especially local businesses.
Mary Ninomiya came into work at 4 a.m. Monday morning to open her business the Bakery Shoppe. Three hours later, she was told to stop using city water. The news came as a surprise to Ninomiya, and she was forced to dump $150 worth of coffee.
"It is hard in times like this when, with already difficult economic times for people to have to dump or not be able to open their stores,” said Ninomiya. “I don't know what the best way to go about it would be, however, I think there should be maybe some more alerts."
The Bakery Shoppe is a weekday business and Ninomiya said she didn't know about the boil alert until Monday morning.
As much as the Bakery Shoppe and other local businesses were affected by the water boil alert, Edelweiss Coffee Shop may have been hit the hardest. The drive-thru coffee shop decided not to open Monday. This is the first time Edelweiss chose not to open in nearly six years.
"Really we couldn't because we couldn't sanitize anything without our water,” said owner of Edelweiss Coffee, Jenni Wender. “You know; and we sanitize things every single time we use them so we could have bought ice, we could have bought water, but that wouldn't solve the problem of sanitizing all the utensils we use."
Iron Mountain City Manager Jordan Stanchina said because the situation is complicated, the city will review the procedures in place.
"Fortunately nothing came of this, but it is now a good time to say, hey if it happens again--which I hope it never does--but if it does happen again, then let’s take a look at what we did,” said Stanchina. “Was it all properly done or could we improve?"
The health department contacts local businesses, but the city is responsible for notifying residents under the current procedure in place.
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