10 Manatee schools on ‘boil alert’ living on bottled water

The water fountains at Manatee High School were covered with plastic bags Wednesday, and there was bottled water just about everywhere you looked.
Manatee High is one of 10 schools in the School District of Manatee currently under a boil water caution, imposed upon all city of Bradenton residents through Thursday.
Mulling’s school came to the rescue, providing her with bottled water that she took home, at least to use to brush her teeth.
While Manatee was the only high school in the district under the caution, eight elementary schools under the boil alert had either bagged up or turned off their water fountains as had one middle school — Sugg.
Also under the caution are the downtown school board building and The Robert G. Matzke Support Center, said Regina Thoma, director of food services for the district.
“The principals at the schools are deciding whether to hand out water outside of the cafeteria,” Thoma said.
“I got a couple of water bottles from school and we had more bottles at home from hurricane preparation,” Mulling said.
Students who were heading home were told by Underhill they should not drink the water at their homes.
“We made the same announcement at 2:15 p.m. before they went home,” Underhill said.

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