I usually don’t write about boil-water advisories because they are unusually common and usually non-threatening. When people start getting sick, I get interested.

But I do have an interest in how boil-water advisories are communicated: Is the wording clear? Are the actions to be taken clearly stated? Are there graphics for those who can’t read? Is the advisory in multiple languages?

Socorro, New Mexico, home of the PhD pretty hair doctors and beauty salon (right), discovered E. coli in one of their four water wells and began distributing informational flyers. A local correspondent took a picture of the flyer and passed it along.