This should be fun

"TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck) 02/28/2020 at 11:17 • Filed to: None

0

9

Houston is now under a boil water notice.

My hotel falls under the notice, so it looks like I won’t be drinking any of the tap water today! Fortunately, I have a small electric kettle that I can use to boil water for tea, coffee, etc. But, I’ll probably play it safe and buy some bottled water.

What happened? There was a large water main break.

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

It caused some minor flooding in the area, but more importantly, the damage has contaminated the drinking water in the area. Most of the area schools are shut down and many businesses in the area too.

For Sweden > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/28/2020 at 11:26

1

Add some UV dye so you can find all the leaks.

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/28/2020 at 11:32

3

Lots of Texas has prestressed concrete cylinder pipe for their large water and sewer mains. This material has a tendency to get corrosion in the steel wire that is wrapped extremely tightly around the pipe. When it fails, it fails completely and catastrophically. I have seen many presentations at conferences about condition assessment of this material and ways to repair it.

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > For Sweden 02/28/2020 at 11:41

4

One time my employer added a green dy e to a sewer system to check for leaks and found green dye running into a water way that it should not be connected to. That was not a good day.

EL_ULY > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/28/2020 at 11:44

3

absolute madness.

though, we are still washing cars here lol

MonkeePuzzle > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/28/2020 at 12:07

0

check the kettle before use. as they are so rarely used by hotel guests and infrequently cleaned properly, they can grow mold and such

facw > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/28/2020 at 12:08

1

Yep, my company’s Houston office is open but no drinking water, and the cafeteria is closed. At least my department was kind enough to find and buy bottled water for everyone there.

And of course they didn’t even issue a boil water order after Harvey (I drank the tap water, but didn’t really trust it), so this seem considerably bad.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 02/28/2020 at 12:13

0

Ouch. My wife knows of several places where people’s sewer dumps straight into a ditch.

Welcome to Louisiana.

TheRealBicycleBuck > MonkeePuzzle 02/28/2020 at 12:15

2

Thanks for the advice. I’m a long-term guest, so I bought my own kettle and use it frequently.

I posted about the glasses in the hotel rooms some time ago and someone told me about finding a turd in the coffee maker. That’s when I decided that having my own kettle wasn’t a bad idea.

user314 > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/28/2020 at 12:22

2

OK, this is seriously almost impressive how bad this is:

I mean, we’re (unfortunately) used to water main breaks here in the ‘Burgh, given our freeze/thaw cycles, but this is almost Biblical flooding. Exactly how big was this main?

96-inch water main was 35 years old.

Oh. Eight foot pipe. Yikes.....