The Hydrant Incident

Tuesday, February 24, 2004. By some cosmic chance, I had taken the afternoon off for a personal appointment and did a bit of shopping afterward. I picked up Loretta from where she was working and stopped by the house to drop off a few things before taking her to her next work appointment. As we pulled into our driveway, City of Salem workers yanked out the fie hydrant that sat between our house and the neighbors. They believed it was connected to a "dead" water main. It wasn't. The pictorial on the left will lead you through the scenes of the event - at least those I was able to capture while frantically asking for sandbags - without response - and clearing my basement of valuables. Water poured from the hole for an hour and 45 minutes before City of Salem crews finally found the shut off valve. By that time my basement had a significant amount of water in it with some certain damage of consequence. There were several moments during the event that the city crews could have taken measures to avoid this situation. They did not, until the damage was done. I easily forgive accidents and unforseen occurrances. Lack of caring is not high on my forgiveness list. Neither are beauracratic rules that get in the way of doing what needs to be done. Fortunately, very few posessions were lost, and those that were can be replaced, for the most part. Damage assessment took many weeks and things were in disarray for much longer. Many friends provided assistance with the situation and to them I offer my sincere thanks. We all recovered and carry with us those blessings we have in our life, like being able to take a fortuitous afternoon off work.