Kenesaw Public Schools remains open through Boil Water Advisory

KENESAW, Neb. (KSNB) - The Village of Kenesaw is still under a Boil Water Advisory. The advisory first went into effect on Sunday, and village officials said it’s just a precautionary measure.

They do not have an exact timeframe for when it will be lifted, because the water has to pass two Health and Safety Test within 24 hours of each other. While all this is happening, Kenesaw Public Schools remains open. School officials said they have made a couple of adjustments according to the advisory.

“They started immediately putting chlorine into the water supply, and the chlorine would kill any bacteria if there was any in there, and really it’s more of a precautionary measure if anything,” said Rick Masters, Superintendent of Kenesaw Public Schools. “Just to make sure that the water is safe..”

Masters said there hasn’t been any major changes, because most of KPS students drink milk with their lunch. Village officials also supplied a pallet of bottled water to the school. He adds, that the school has been dealing with the boil water advisory as a day-by-day situation.

“When I talked to them on the phone I told them that we would need at least 350 bottles a day.” Masters said. “That would probably get through at least one bottle for every student and staff member in our building and so they’ve supplied that. We also made an all call, what we call an all call home to parents.”

Masters said they’re encouraging parents to send their kids to school with an extra bottle of water. Overall, village official brought in four pallets of bottled water and two pallets of gallon jugs to give residents a sense of relief during this time.

“We weren’t sure how long we were going to be completely out of water,” said Sarah Kroos, a village of Kenesaw board member. “In situations like this when there is a boil advisory, the water is safe to be used once boiled. So going forward we’ve got water until we run out at this point.”

Kroos said at this point getting the advisory lifted is a waiting game.

“We will alert village residents,” Kroos said. “We’ll put it on our Facebook page. We will send out another push notification. Emergency management can send those push notifications out that goes straight to peoples cell phones. Once the boil advisory will be lifted, that’s what we’ll be doing. We’ll be posting it around town, getting the word out as quickly as possible.”

Masters said the school has enough supplies to last until the end of the week.

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