The water pipe that broke in Kamloops, B.C. earlier this week has been repaired, with service being restored to more than 8,000 residences and businesses.

But some say the city needs to fix its communications plan for keeping residents updated during emergency situations.

Cheryl McCulloch owns The Pond Market in Barnhartvale, on the southeast end of the city where water was deemed unsafe to consume even after service was restored.

“We’ve not heard anything about it from the city,” she told CBC Daybreak Kamloops. “My co-worker told me about it.”

Manny Mattis, the owner of Harold’s Restaurant in Valleyview, told CBC News he kept operating on Monday and Tuesday because he didn’t receive any notification from the city that the water wasn’t safe to use.

“We haven’t heard from anybody, but that would be a concern especially if somebody had got sick over the water, that could have been a problem.”

He was particularly frustrated because there was confusion about who could and couldn’t operate, with some fast-food chains in the area running while he had been told to send staff home.

The city directed residents to download the Voyent Alert! app for emergency alerts, and said it has also been distributing information through its website and the media, as well as door-knocking.

But Kamloops Deputy Mayor Katie Neustaeter also said the city is taking lessons from the incident.

“I think that’s come through loud and clear that there needs to be a post-mortem on this that really examines how information is put out, when information is put out.”

Health info comes from Interior Health

As of Friday morning, the broken line had been fixed but work would still need to be done before all water could be consumed, said Joe Luison, the city’s assistant director of civic operations.

As reservoirs were refilled, he said, tests would be conducted to ensure there were no health concerns.

But the responsibility for making that determination, he said, rested with Interior Health, the local health authority.

“We’re not the regulating body on whether a restaurant can open under certain orders. I would recommend that they call their governing body that overseas that to get their approval,” he said during a news conference.

In a statement, Interior Health said that on Friday morning it had provided an update to impacted food premises and that further updates would be based on water testing.

“Interior Health is closely linked in with the city to support evaluation of results of their water sample testing,” said a statement attributed to medical health officer Dr. Sandra Allison, who also said that there had so far been no signs of contamination or reports of illness.

Mattis said it seemed like they were getting mixed messages on where to turn.

Strategic communications

Cynthia Lockrey, a speaker and educator on crisis communications who has worked for multiple municipalities, said it’s become more difficult for officials to distribute information to residents because of how many different channels there are, and how quickly people want updates.

“The landscape is so busy,” she said. “So for local governments, they have to be really strategic.”

She also said governments are often cautious about releasing too much information too quickly, in case something they present as a possibility becomes misconstrued as a fact.

“One way of getting around it is, I call it, ‘State the obvious,'” she said. She described that as simply telling people that officials are gathering information and they will provide updates when they know more.

“In this whole world of inaccurate information being conveyed as facts, it’s even more important that local governments are only sharing what is true.”