Topic: "Prince George's water outage like a 'natural disaster'"

[Pandora]

"WASHINGTON - Life over the next three to five days will be one where southern Prince George's County residents will have to adjust to no water.

More than 150,000 Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission customers are affected, but the impact is much greater since a customer may be an individual home or business.

"This is an unprecedented situation in terms of the scope and size," said Scott Petersen, a spokesman for Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker, on WTOP.

"It is the equivalent of a natural disaster hitting the county," said Petersen.

Residents and businesses are urged to conserve water as the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission repairs a 54-inch water line, a huge project in a remote area.

Mandatory water restrictions went into effect at 9 p.m. Tuesday.

Three hours later, WSSC shut down the affected water main. Water inside the main is expected to last customers 12 to 15 hours.

"The water will last 12 to 15 hours. That clock started around midnight," said Lyn Riggins, WSSC spokeswoman, Wednesday morning.

WSSC has been urging people to stock up on water and conserve what water they use. The more people conserve, the longer they'll be able to get water from the shut- down main.

When the water in the main runs out, repairs to the massive water main begin.

"We're going to work as quickly as possible," Riggins said.

But it will take "three to five days" before the water comes back on, she said."

http://www.wtop.com/58/3389798/Prince-Georges-water-outage-like-a-natural-disaster

H/T Drudge

They shut down the water main, tell people to conserve water (because all that's available now is in the main), but they can't fix the pipe until all the water now filling the pipe is used up.  Is it just me or is there something wrong with this picture?

[AlanS]

The government is in charge. 'Nuff said.

[Libertas]

   Where do they get their water from? Reservoir?  River?  

Sounds like BS, sounds like they are not saying what is really going on...could be something they detected in the water...or perhaps just a conditioning op...who knows?

But a simple pipe repair and it could take 3-5 days?

Yeah, OK, either union (govt or private) labor sucks royally...or they be lyin'!

Or both!

[Weisshaupt]

For several days a warning system attached to the 54-inch pipe alerted WSSC that it may be ready to rupture.

The wires that support the pipe have burst. If too many of them break, the whole water main will burst, said WSSC spokesman Jim Neustadt on WTOP.

"We wouldn't be doing this if there wasn't an imminent problem with this pipe," said Neustadt.

"Think about River Road when that water main exploded in 2008, and there was a pouring of water going down River Road. We don't want this situation to end up like that," said Riggins on Wednesday.

The water main isn't in an area that is easily accessible.

"We literally have to build a road to where the pipe is, or where that section of pipe is," Neustadt said Monday night. "It's through a wooded area and that wooded area is roughly bordered by the Beltway and Suitland Parkway and Forestville Road."

After the repairs are made, Petersen said the county will be questioning WSSC more about its system.

Aging 3rd world infrastructure?
Conditioning?
Terrorist Attack?

Who knows.  The point is that a single, unprotected, remote, 5 foot diameter pipe servers 150,000 households. 

[RickZ]

Is it just me or is there something wrong with this picture?

Can I choose Option C, 'Both'?/

[Glock32]

They shut down the water main, tell people to conserve water (because all that's available now is in the main), but they can't fix the pipe until all the water now filling the pipe is used up.  Is it just me or is there something wrong with this picture?

Yes. And what's worse is no one from officialdom or the vaunted media has raised your point. This reads like one of those word problems in Logic, where you have to symbolize the statements and identify fallacies.

Let's see...we want to A. get this done as quickly as possible, but B. can't do it until the line is drained of water, therefore C. everyone should use water sparingly so it doesn't drain the line too quickly.

Oh yeah. I can't wait for everyone's health care to be run by these people.

[LadyVirginia]

what a wonderful opportunity for these residents to feel virtuous while they "conserve" water as the government pulls the wool over their eyes.....

 

[Glock32]

Remember when they had that wind storm in the DC area, and it caused power to be out for over a week? And this is the state of infrastructure in the very heart of the beast. But despite that, people just blithely assume government is the answer to all these complex societal issues?

[warpmine]

False alarm folks. The water repair people said they've managed to navigate around the troubled area to lessen the strain. I guess they just wanted to give the worse case scenario in case. It was 96-98 today in the area.

My question to those in charge of the aging third world county is how much longer can you keep handing out money to leeches that refuse to work while ignoring the infrastructure basics? Stupid f**ks!

[Libertas]

Sounds like people screamed and morons jumped. A rare event. What is not going to be rare is more breakdowns in all of our aging infrastructure.

[RickZ]

Sounds like people screamed and morons jumped. A rare event. What is not going to be rare is more breakdowns in all of our aging infrastructure.

But the trains welfare checks will still be on time.  ~ Benito Obamalini

[Libertas]

Sounds like people screamed and morons jumped. A rare event. What is not going to be rare is more breakdowns in all of our aging infrastructure.

But the trains welfare checks will still be on time.  ~ Benito Obamalini

That too shall fail one day soon. . .

Not that a freeshyter knows/cares. . .

[Glock32]

Sounds like people screamed and morons jumped. A rare event. What is not going to be rare is more breakdowns in all of our aging infrastructure.

But the trains welfare checks will still be on time.  ~ Benito Obamalini

That too shall fail one day soon. . .

Not that a freeshyter knows/cares. . .

They'll just keep banging their spoon on the tray of their highchair, it's what has always worked for them before. Until it doesn't. That's going be interesting.

[Libertas]

Sounds like people screamed and morons jumped. A rare event. What is not going to be rare is more breakdowns in all of our aging infrastructure.

But the trains welfare checks will still be on time.  ~ Benito Obamalini

That too shall fail one day soon. . .

Not that a freeshyter knows/cares. . .

They'll just keep banging their spoon on the tray of their highchair, it's what has always worked for them before. Until it doesn't. That's going be interesting.

Yeah, can't wait to see their tantrum when I tell them it is now time for them to just do the right thing and die already.

[BigAlSouth]

I found it curious that the water authority claimed the pipe broke in an inaccessible part of the country.

Damn. Did the pipe just lay itself when it was constructed?