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Water, Water Everywhere

Blog: Frustrated Businessman
Posted by: knightrider45 Monday 31st December 2007, 8:10am

Been a bit of an unsung hero lately on my nightshifts lately!

If you live in a certain area of Kings Lynn and have woken up with a water supply every morning over the last week or so, you can thank me for an uninteruppted supply!

My job means I have to do bits of everything, you know, like First Aid, Firefighting, Chemical disposal and safety and so on. But at half past midnight, on 20th December took me totally by suprise.

I'd sneaked off somewhere for a quick fag just before midnight and, on sneaking off again at half past, I heard the sound of a really heavy rain storm. But it wasn't raining?

A great big, massive water mains had burst. In just over half an hour, the road was a flowing river, with, literally, hundreds and hundreds of gallons of raging water turning the road into a river.

The main mains burst was just outside where I was working at the time, but this burst had ruptured the whole water pipe all along the road. There were spectacular water fountains all along one side of the road, crossing the road at the bottom in front of me. There must have been at least 20-25 separate water fountains, in addition to the main burst.

Really really amazing. And, in the darkness, admittedly, rather scarey too. And on checking things with my torch, the road I was standing on started sinking, so much that in seconds, my shoes were below road level! Have you ever seen tarmac sinking? Really really weird. Especially when you're standing on it!!

So, obviously, I had to inform Anglia Water, who had to send their emergency engineer from Dereham. I was standing next to this man inside an hour as he turned off the water. His job was to assess the callout and action everything needed. He turned white when I showed him the road sinking!

The emergency gang came from a callout in Norwich and started work at 4am by drilling up the road.

So, there we are then. If you live where I work, and have had an uninterrupted water supply, and have been able to drive up and down a certain road which I saved from being closed off, it was all down to me making that one, single phone call.

Otherwise it would have been left until someone else noticed it on their way to work at, what, 5 or 6am? Imagine the chaos then. As it was, a few places were flooded out, but nothing too major. It would have been so different a few hours later.

And thanks especially to that friendly and professional water engineer, I can't remember his name now, and his emergency gang. Everyone had a really long time in sub freezing weather.

Amazing what goes when you're asleep every night isn't it?

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