Homeowners and business owners in Danville will have to wait at least another day before water will be safe to drink.
City officials are waiting on test results before lifting the ban.
In the meantime it's become a real headache for businesses.
"It's definitely affecting a whole lot of things even business wise," said Pasquale Costagliola owner of Frank's Pizza on Memorial Drive.
Before dough can be mixed or the sauce can be served, the water has to be boiled. Ice machines and fountain drinks are unusable.
"We are using bottled sodas, bottled water. As far as ice, we are just outsourcing it. Just go buying it at the Sam's Club," Costagliola said.
Monday afternoon this restaurant and many around Danville were forced to close early.
It's the first time a mass boil water notice covering a large area has been issued in the history of the city's water treatment plant according to plant manager Barry Dunkley.
"For the boil water notice to be lifted there's two things we have to do, one of them is to get the plant back to the way it should be and operating to meet state and federal regulations. The other one is we have to collect a series of bacteriological samples from the system," Dunkley said.
He says a large amount of harmful chemicals like fertilizer from early spring planting mixed with recent heavy rains overloaded the filters and in turn ruining the water.
The city's emergency has become a state of emergency at Danville Regional Medical Center.
"Right now we're using 60 gallons of water per minute. That's about 170 thousand gallons per day that we typically use. So we have to make sure we have a constant water source," said hospital CEO Eric Deaton.
Three tanks full of water transported from North Carolina are providing the main water source for the entire building.
