Yesterday I'm coming home from the park where I was talking to my shrink. I was late in starting the tele-session and thus late in finishing it. That may have been a good thing.
When I was rolling up to my house, I saw a few cars stationed on the road, not moving. It was very close to my house -- not blocking it, but close enough whereby I had to see what was going on. Not only were there, like, three cars but a half-dozen people congregating around this area.
After I parked and approached, I saw what it was. There is a T-intersection very close the house. Right around there there was water. A shit ton of water -- small but roiling.
It was very close to the neighbor kitty-corner to us. So I, mask on, just had to sate my curiosity and mosey on over there and the people who were watching this gusher. And what I saw even further was mesmerizing. There was a fire hydrant that was there, and that was knocked over. There was an intersection sign there; not only were the cross-signs on the ground, I couldn't tell where the pole was. And since this was a T, there was a stop sign. I couldn't see a stop sign.
The neighbors who were gawking, plus probably the driver of one car who just had to stop and see what the hell was going on, told me what happened; a few of them even saw it. A truck took the turn in the intersection way too fast, taking out the stop sign, the intersection sign, and the fire hydrant. Knocking over that hydrant caused the gushing of water. I don't know if one of the people there called 911 or if a cop just happened to come by at the right time, but one of the cars stopped at the intersection was local police.
I just had to look closer. The water was slowly continuing to rise. I took a look at the fallen intersection sign and I was taken aback by the rumble of the flooding water underneath my feet. I'm actually worried that the break allowed water to break through the basement of my neighbor. I started to see the hydrant start jutting up and down from the pressure of the water below. Soon, the mini-flood created about a six-foot-wide mini-sinkhole around where the hydrant and the signs were. It wasn't that deep, but it was a hell of a lot deeper than I've ever seen a water main break around town.
Right around then I had a thought. If I had taken my session on time, or if I went through on my Plan B decision and decided to talk for far less than an hour, I could have been on the street at the same time as this crazy motherfucker. He could have ran me over. Maybe I was lucky to avoid him.
Shortly after I got there, city water and the fire department got there. It was getting cooler to watch our tax dollars at work, but I knew my parents were about to have dinner, so after ten minutes I excused myself. I went in and we ate, but we were peeking through the window to see the city shut off the main valve (thereby leaving us without water for less than half a hour; Mother wanted to wash her hands but couldn't; I had wipes she could use; she got exasperated at how big a sheet was and tore it in half and stuffed the other half back into the pouch ... my God, she really was raised Third World) and then begin to patch the road at the intersection.
The clean-up looked, and sounded, awesome. I didn't look out the window much after we got done eating, but I could actually feel the rumble of something out on the street. I looked out and saw that there was some heavy machinery the city had to call in in order to fix the street -- a forklift, a backloader (maybe?), a hauler for the forklift, plus the cop cars, fire vehicles, and city works trucks. For a while they had to tape off our part of the street. I couldn't have gone anywhere anyway; a car locked the road right in front of our driveway to assist in the patch.
They got done a bit past dusk. In the morning I looked over and I couldn't see anything over there but an erect hydrant and a hell of a lot of sand and dug-up dirt. Oh, and no water. They fixed it!
Two things I get from this. The truck did run, but the witnesses say its front end is completely fucked up. If they find him, by God, that asshole should pay for everything. And second, this is why I pay taxes to the city: For clean-ups like this. It took several hours, but a disaster caused by some prick was fixed, and we can go on with our sheltered-in-place lives. Viva community!
When I was rolling up to my house, I saw a few cars stationed on the road, not moving. It was very close to my house -- not blocking it, but close enough whereby I had to see what was going on. Not only were there, like, three cars but a half-dozen people congregating around this area.
After I parked and approached, I saw what it was. There is a T-intersection very close the house. Right around there there was water. A shit ton of water -- small but roiling.
It was very close to the neighbor kitty-corner to us. So I, mask on, just had to sate my curiosity and mosey on over there and the people who were watching this gusher. And what I saw even further was mesmerizing. There was a fire hydrant that was there, and that was knocked over. There was an intersection sign there; not only were the cross-signs on the ground, I couldn't tell where the pole was. And since this was a T, there was a stop sign. I couldn't see a stop sign.
The neighbors who were gawking, plus probably the driver of one car who just had to stop and see what the hell was going on, told me what happened; a few of them even saw it. A truck took the turn in the intersection way too fast, taking out the stop sign, the intersection sign, and the fire hydrant. Knocking over that hydrant caused the gushing of water. I don't know if one of the people there called 911 or if a cop just happened to come by at the right time, but one of the cars stopped at the intersection was local police.
I just had to look closer. The water was slowly continuing to rise. I took a look at the fallen intersection sign and I was taken aback by the rumble of the flooding water underneath my feet. I'm actually worried that the break allowed water to break through the basement of my neighbor. I started to see the hydrant start jutting up and down from the pressure of the water below. Soon, the mini-flood created about a six-foot-wide mini-sinkhole around where the hydrant and the signs were. It wasn't that deep, but it was a hell of a lot deeper than I've ever seen a water main break around town.
Right around then I had a thought. If I had taken my session on time, or if I went through on my Plan B decision and decided to talk for far less than an hour, I could have been on the street at the same time as this crazy motherfucker. He could have ran me over. Maybe I was lucky to avoid him.
Shortly after I got there, city water and the fire department got there. It was getting cooler to watch our tax dollars at work, but I knew my parents were about to have dinner, so after ten minutes I excused myself. I went in and we ate, but we were peeking through the window to see the city shut off the main valve (thereby leaving us without water for less than half a hour; Mother wanted to wash her hands but couldn't; I had wipes she could use; she got exasperated at how big a sheet was and tore it in half and stuffed the other half back into the pouch ... my God, she really was raised Third World) and then begin to patch the road at the intersection.
The clean-up looked, and sounded, awesome. I didn't look out the window much after we got done eating, but I could actually feel the rumble of something out on the street. I looked out and saw that there was some heavy machinery the city had to call in in order to fix the street -- a forklift, a backloader (maybe?), a hauler for the forklift, plus the cop cars, fire vehicles, and city works trucks. For a while they had to tape off our part of the street. I couldn't have gone anywhere anyway; a car locked the road right in front of our driveway to assist in the patch.
They got done a bit past dusk. In the morning I looked over and I couldn't see anything over there but an erect hydrant and a hell of a lot of sand and dug-up dirt. Oh, and no water. They fixed it!
Two things I get from this. The truck did run, but the witnesses say its front end is completely fucked up. If they find him, by God, that asshole should pay for everything. And second, this is why I pay taxes to the city: For clean-ups like this. It took several hours, but a disaster caused by some prick was fixed, and we can go on with our sheltered-in-place lives. Viva community!
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