The water issues that plagued the city of Vicksburg affected everyone within the city limits. It inconvenienced families, businesses and passersby.

But imagine if your business was housing families and passersby for a night or two or caring for the sick.

“It’s just been an inconvenience,” said Leslie Madison, general manager at the La Quinta Inn. “We just winged it.”

At hotels across town, bottles of water had to be brought in — pallets of water in fact — explanations had to be given and staff had to put in extra hours to make it work.

Madison said La Quinta had 24 cancellations in light of the water issues and had a total of 40 workers and guests in the hotel at the time it was without water.

“It’s not fun, and it’s still not fun,” Madison said when water pressure had returned but the boil water notice was still in effect.

She said she sent most of her staff home the day the water wasn’t flowing from faucets and had to purchase six cases of water bottles, containing 35 bottles each, Tuesday, eight cases Wednesday and still had to go buy more Thursday.

“I wonder if the city is going to reimburse me for that,” she said.

Theresa Baker, general manager of the Courtyard Marriott, said the hotel didn’t experience any major issues, though a water pipe did burst after water pressure was restored.

“No major revenue was lost besides nine cancelled rooms,” she said, noting a few guests were upset but the majority were understanding.

“Every guest got four to six bottles of water,” she said. She added they also brought up water for guests to flush toilets. “Whatever they needed, we got for them.”

No water also meant that no sheets could be cleaned, so Baker said she had to take 15 bags of laundry to the cleaners when the hotel didn’t have water.

“Who takes 15 bags of laundry to the launder? I did that day,” she said, laughing.

The hotel stocks bottles of water for guests so they already had 50 cases in house, she said.

“That’s what I think really saved us,” she said.

Merit Health River Region was also in an area affected by the water outage and boil water notice last week.

“Patient care continued without interruption while the city’s water boil advisory was in place,” Robyn Pollack of Merit Health said. “Resources including bathing cloths and bottled water were utilized to meet patient sanitation and drinking needs. Our cafeteria used disposable dishware and distilled water for cooking.”

Madison seemed to sum it up by calling it an inconvenience.

“Being a holiday weekend, this shouldn’t be happening,” she said, referring to the full house she expected for the weekend.