And not a drop

[jethrien]

Apparently a contractor broke a water main a couple blocks from us. They're telling us to boil all our water before drinking it.

Fortunately, we went to sparticleman's place last night for a housewarming party. Because his building posted notices...and otherwise we would have had no idea.

Which leads to three thoughts.

1. The news is useless. I've been trying to find more information, but failing to find anything useful. For example - they say very specifically that this affects a 10x20 block area centering on the break. But they don't tell us where the break is, exactly. (They say the street, but the street stretches the length of the city. They say the neigborhood, but the street is in the neighborhood for a good ten blocks. We don't know if we're officially affected.) Or - they say we should boil water for a minute. But not for how long we have to do this. Today? The next two days? This week? Forever? However, as Chuckro pointed out, every single report has helpfully mentioned that it was a 36-inch pipe. Thanks, media.

2. In the event of a local emergency, we're screwed. We don't listen to the radio, we don't watch TV, we don't really talk to our neighbors, we don't live in a big enough building to have notices posted, we get our news from the Internet, whcih is fairly national/international. Godzilla could be stomping around Hoboken, heading south, and we would have no idea until he stepped on us with his big scaly feet.

3. Man, this sucks.

Comments

[wavilyem.livejournal.com]

I don't know about where you live but Arlington (my town) has a town email list where I can learn about everything from free stuff people are leaving on their curb to more serious local matters like the bank robbery in Arlington Center last week. There's also ongoing debates about how fast bikes should be allowed to go on the local bikepath and whether T Mobile should be allowed to install a cell tower on one of the public elementary schools. If your community has a similar list, I bet you they've figured out what's going on with that 36 inch pipe!

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

The thing is, getting local news isn't really an issue on weekdays, because I work in the neighborhood. If this had happened on a Tuesday, the building management here would have sent out a blast email and I would have known long before getting home. It's just on weekends that it becomes clear how isolated from the world we are.