Brain-eating amoeba in Texas city water supplies

Brain-eating amoeba in water supply spurs Texas city to declare disaster after boy, 6, dies
Sept. 26th, 2020

This happened on the opposite side of Houston from me but that's still too close. There's a lot of economic and supply chain issues in the chemical industry right now. I fear it's going to cause some serious problems with all sorts of public utilities. Time to upgrade the house's water purification system.
-Blast

During some of the Recent Unpleasantness I reflected upon how long we could shelter in place if the water utility failed, and I wasn’t happy with the answer.

Boil your drinking water?? That should kill all organisms....

Yikes! You normally just see that in some southern lakes/ponds and just rarely. Terrifying to see it in the municipal water! I feel terrible for the family of the little boy...you just take it for granted that water from the tap is safe. No way they could have seen this coming.

Shocking thing is was only discovered weeks after the child died.

Yeah, but speaking from experience, it's kind of difficult for a family of one male and three long-haired females to shower every day with boiled water.
-Blast

I know absolutely nothing about this organism, but unless you ingest some of your shower water, woul you not be OK?

If this is not the case, I would resort to solar showers filled with boiled water. Thee can be had in varying capacities up to five gallons. long and tedious of course, but you can get squeaky clan. I have used solar showers for up to two weeks while on field excavations (you get mighty dirty on those!)

The folks that die from this particular ameoba are usually infected when water enters the nasal passages. From there it's a hop, skip and a jump to the brain.

I've been told it can also enter the body through the eyes.

This whole-house water line UV sterilization unit has caught my eye. Especially since it's only $217.
-Blast

Can get LED units.

https://www.aquisense.com/
https://www.klaran.com/

are two brands/makers.

Such a thing has never occurred to me. Interesting.

Whoa, even better! UV LEDs would be much safer than UV mercury vapor lamps.
Many thanks,
-Blast

Here in TX you're allowed to capture rain water for home use but it's specifically required to undergo UV sterilization before coming out of taps. It seemed weird when I first learn that but now I coming around to the logic.
-Blast