Rampant Stupidity

[pieces o nine]

Perhaps they were attempting to thwart those who would "drown gubmint in a bathtub" by, um, shutting off the water to the local bathtubs...

[Sibling Chatty]

It was..interesting. We're now on a 24 hour "please boil all drinking water" restriction.

I love my little reverse osmosis system.
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Anthro, about the country club...the closest we get to a country club in the pool room at the VFW hall, or the 'regular suspects' table at Mama's Kitchen.

We small, we po'.  We are the lowest average income county outside the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

Yeah, that makes sense.  When water isn't in motion, it starts to grow things.  If you let even treated water sit around in the pipes long enough, eventually the residual chorine will get overwhelmed, and bacteria and microbes will start to grow.

Hmm, let me see, the last time Yarra Valley Water turned our water off they mailed everyone in our area about a week before hand to tell us.  Perhaps that's too high tech for your bozos.

They do not even need to know everyone's address (although I would think the City would have them all anyway), the post office over here can do bulk mail outs for very small areas and it does not cost much more than a few cents above the postage.  I am sure the post office in your town could manage it if asked.  What's more they do not need a lot of notice since it simply piggy backs onto their normal distribution system.  I do not think Austalia Post are rocket scientists when it comes to this. I reckon your posttal system could probably manage too.  I think you may be right about the City of Somervile

Even without the post office, they could still notify residents.

A part of one of my summer jobs when I was in school was to drop off notices at peoples' homes before the city did some sort of work that would affect them.  It doesn't take a whole lot to let a student or a temp loose with 1,500 copies of a notice, a map and a clipboard.

Failing that, for a town of 1,500 people, it'd probably do just fine to set up a portable sign in front of the town hall that says "Water service to be shut off between ____ and ____" for a week or two ahead of time.

OR... if even that's too much bother, a quick phone call to the local newspaper and radio station would get the word out, too.

One big thing that worries me is safety: at least around here, the rule is that any time you shut down the fire sprinklers in a building that requires them, you have to post a fire watch (i.e. someone whose only job is to wander the building with a fire extinguisher) around the clock until the sprinklers are reactivated.  I'm guessing that if the town didn't tell anyone before it shut off the water, then there would probably have been at least a few businesses that were deficient in terms of life safety for a while.

I hope they at least told the fire department.

[Pachyderm]

one of my lecturers was high up in the Emergency Planning section of an Australian State Government.

They had to shut down the water supply for a fairly large area. Told everybody, had reserves kept for schools, hospitals and the Fire boys. All good. State sent people out to physically switch off mains etc. Informed residents about times of switch-offs, so some stocking up could be done. All good.

Couple of days later, health centres and hospitals report huge increase in persons reporting with burned scalps. Water off, but not power. Presence of kettle seemed to be saying "Wash your hair with freshly boiled water...."

[Swatopluk]

Or they confused Fahrenheit and Celsius again
Hey, why does this boiler not go above 100 degrees? It's warmer outside than in this kettle.

I took a bath once, when hot water was switched off. The problem was to get enough water hot by using the (cooking) stove and the water cooker usually used for tea before the earlier batches had cooled down too much. And it was difficult to get extra hot water once I sat in the tub. Now I know why bathing was a rare and family occasion once.

[anthrobabe]

Chatty do you still have gunslingers too? I know what you mean- I've seen some tiny TX towns, you drive in and the theme song from The Good The Bad and The Ugly starts playing....


Swato- while growing up and 'camping' I've had my share of freezing tub baths with scalding pockets of molten lave temp water. I agree this is one reason that many took baths once a ____ in history.

One historical invention that changed the life of women in particular was the advent of the hot water reservoir on/with the kitchen stove-- those few gallons of water that could be heated and held must have seemed like a miracle to many.

[Sibling Chatty]

I spent a week snowed in, in the backwoods hills of Oklahoma, where to have hot bathwater, you went out to a 55 gallon drum (set on its side), filled it by means of a hand pump, then started a fire under it. A wood fire, and you'd best NOT use the stovewood.

Then you went inside and put some cold water in the tub..not much, but some. When the water outside was about done, you opened the bathroom window, and ran the attached pipe into the tub, then opened the valve. After the "tank" drained, you could either put out the fire, or the next potential bater could refill the tank.

You went in, stirred the water with a canoe paddle, then added cold water as needed. Lots of fun, especially in 3 feet of snow.

[Aggie]

Maybe not for daily bathing, but I like the idea of that system.  My first run at the Monastery (I'm planning to start with a campground, and knock some rough cabins up as I have to cut trees down for the bamboo to spread) is gonna have one of those to heat the hottub. 

[Sibling Chatty]

Try to use a better boiler than a used 55 gallon drum, 'K?

Or at least get a good clean one.   

[Aggie]

Ayuh, I'd be picky about what was in the drum previously.  But I'm sure I could come up with something.

[Sibling Chatty]

The ones this guy used were old herbicide barrels...for a little concoction of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T). Little number known for the color of the 2 stripes on the barrels--orange ones.

His grandsons and I hunted him down new barrels when the snow cleared, and had the old ones hauled away.

[Aggie]

The ones this guy used were old herbicide barrels...for a little concoction of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T). Little number known for the color of the 2 stripes on the barrels--orange ones.

His grandsons and I hunted him down new barrels when the snow cleared, and had the old ones hauled away.

  And all the lovely co-synthetic dioxins. 

[Pachyderm]

In Africa, they would have used those barrels to make the palm wine....

[Bluenose]

Hey!  Someone's found out the secret ingredients to Captain's Delight XO! 

[Pachyderm]

No problem, I used to work in a chemistry lab. I'm sure I can concoct another secret ingredient or two....