Wet, Wild & Wicked Weekend

I dont know that there are even words to describe the weekend and start to the week I have had. But if the picture above is any indication it has been one for the record books.

For those of you that dont know I am just a wee bit into my second year on the board of directors for our townhouse condominium complex. I in all honesty love the position. Im involved in helping better the place that I live and while most of the time its day to day business as usual this weekend has certainly tested me and my fellow directors.

It started Friday afternoon with a set of 5  water main breaks. Our water was shut off and the only word we heard was Monday we’d get water back. Our contractors were working around the clock to fix the situation and as a board all we could do is hope that they would get it done ahead of schedule. But by Saturday night/ Sunday morning we were at 8 main breaks and at a stand still.  Our contractors wanted to replace a 100 foot stretch of pipe. The patch were not solving the problem as it would just blow out a little further down. Monday morning the pipe was to arrive.

The city had been notified by some of the residents and they of course had to swoop in and red tape the whole situation. So instead of keeping the ball rolling they brought in their contractors and their ideas on how they thought it should be done.

More patches. More breaks.  Half the homes had water Sunday night.

Monday morning the president of the board emails the Chief Supervisor in the Region of Peel water works. Says what are we doing wrong. Give us some advice. We get an email back from Chief a short time later saying that he had never seen a situation like this ever in his career.

A more patches and more breaks (we were up to 12 at this point) the city’s contractors finally said this is ridiculous. I think there was 8 clamps in a span of 30 feet worth of pipe. We cannot patch this any further. It needs to be replaced entirely otherwise it could blow completely when they turned the water on again.

Remember we had this started 48 hours before basically? Yeah. Still tangled in red tape. So I left the site at 930pm Monday night hoping that I would get a call for the go ahead before morning and the the pipe was to be ordered and be installed. I ended up going out later to visit with some of the affected residents and ease their concerns that we were doing everything we could. I didn’t get home until after 11.

Ten oclock yesterday morning we finally got the call. Pipe was ordered and they were getting the ball rolling. Twelve thirty the pipe had arrived but the water department wanted different valves to be used. An hour and a half wait for that. Four thirty I got another call. The Health Department was there and they wanted to change how things were to be done yet again.

As of last night when I got home they were talking about the pipe going in first thing this morning and the inspectors will all be on hand to do the final testings etc. Heres hoping by the time I get home tonight everyone will have water. I cannot wait to see what the bill for this is going to be. Certainly a record for us.

Either way Im off to work.

Until tomorrow…

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