It also said it had chlorinated the water on Friday afternoon but advised Havelock North residents to take precautions and boil water for one minute before drinking.
Could the council have acted sooner?
I'm sure there will be a full investigation into how the bug went undetected long enough to do the damage it did.
In today's paper, the council has taken full responsibility and apologised to residents. Good on it for not ducking and diving.
However, all Hastings residents need reassurance that this won't happen again. They need to know that instead of testing the water "at least twice a week", after a significant rainfall such as last week's, it will be tested every day for at least a week.
As soon as the District Health Board or the council had an inkling that something wasn't right, people should have been told to boil their water.
I feel for all those people who have drunk it and are waiting to see if they get the terrible symptoms. It's certainly not over yet.
One thing the council could have done was organise some trucks to go into the village with fresh water for residents.
I did hear Havelock North New World was selling water at cost, so a huge thumbs-up for that.
It's a bit like last week's power cuts. Water is another commodity we all take for granted. When it's suddenly taken away from us, we flounder for a while before we find our feet and take action.
I hope all those affected are feeling a bit better today. Stay home and rest.
I'll be following the fallout with interest. There are a lot of angry people out there and they want answers.
Now to Rio. It has to be said: the 2016 New Zealand Olympics is all about girl power. Yes, the gold medals so far have gone to our spectacular male rowers and we are proud of them. However, you have to admit it's been the ladies in the limelight this year.
It started with our first medal of the Games when Natalie Rooney won silver for shooting, it carried on to the women's rugby sevens, then it was Luuka Jones in the kayaking, Genevieve Behrent and Rebecca Scown in the rowing and finally, as of Saturday, Valerie Adams in the women's shot put.
Well done, ladies.
Maybe if certain players in the men's sevens team were as focused on the game as the women were, instead of strolling about taking selfies and posting them on social media, the outcome may have been different for them.
I got the feeling they thought the gold medal was theirs before they even played the first game. We all know how that ended, with reports of "Japan's shocking win over New Zealand".
Never mind, boys. Don't worry, the girls have got it in hand.
- Linda Hall is assistant editor of Hawke's Bay Today.
