August 6, 2008

No! No! No! Not again!

A few months ago we had a perfectly normal, everyday, paved street at the entrance to our community. A lot can change in a few months. The crews building the new homeless transition center are making amazing progress. An entire community of buildings has been erected and finish work is already in progress. They sit in a muddy lot with no streets, sidewalks or landscaping installed yet. Beautification and amenities will come later. Right now they seem to be concentrating on more basic stuff.

For the last two months there has been excavation work going on to facilitate the laying of underground water mains. The water mains are going beneath our street, where, I assume, they hook up with the existing mains that have been servicing our homes for the last thirty or so years. Our own mains were identified as needing to be replaced quite a while back, but I guess the City and County are waiting for funds to be available. The excavation and joining of new lines has not gone smoothly. I think it’s four times that our own fragile old mains have broken in the last two months, but who’s counting? Each time it happens we are without water until they plug the leak, pump out the water above it and then do a permanent repair.

The frothy white area at the upper right of the puddle is the outflow from a fire hose. The other end of the hose is attached to a pump sitting about eight feet below the surface in a hole on the other side of the excavation equipment. The two men near the center of the picture are standing next to that hole. The whole street is a hole, actually. You can see the outlines of a couple of steel plates on the lower margins of the puddle. You can’t see the other plates because they’re covered with mud or under water. You’ll have to take my word for it - almost the entrie area shown in the picture is covered with steel plates covering excavations. It’s very unnerving to drive through there. The plates clunk and thump, making you think there’s at least a slim chance that you may be getting ready to plummet, car and all, into a bottomless pit. The excavator is sitting on several steel plates, so I suppose they can support my little Saturn, but that doesn’t keep me from getting the willies every time I drive over them.

Folks who were home during the day today were without water for a while. I don’t know how long it was this time, but last week it was an entire day and into the night. Today they restored service about the time I got home. My pipes were full of air and made a terrible racket the first few times I opened a tap, but I didn’t need to lug buckets and jugs down to the water wagon parked up the street, so I’m happy. Well, until next time.

Technorati Tags: road work, utility installation, water main breaks, water mains