Tuesday - evening

Went to the washout today, no issues and left quickly. Got to the plant, they told me to watch for people because there are a lot of external contractors there but go ahead and back in.

A few hours later, I wandered into the control room. When are you going to get to loading my truck? They had said nothing to me about any issues at all. 

The man replied he was going to get to it "in about 45 minutes" I knew that was a lie. If they say 45 minutes, figure a couple of hours. I contacted my management, who contacted the factory rep and after quite a while, I got the story that there is a malfunctioning valve and they can't transfer the product to the outlet for our product. 

Why on earth wouldn't the workers tell me that? It was near 5 hours before they even started loading the truck and 7 hours before i got out of there. Yes, it took them 2 hours to load it.  Ridiculous.   

I didn't get home until 6:00 pm and I was the first load. You  know, the latest loading time should be 1000 am?  

Things weren't any better around here. A 24 inch water transmission line ruptured in town today effectively shutting down water for the entire city.  They shut the water treatment plant down, which shuts down the pumps which of course means no water supply.  They very quickly declared our town a "local disaster area" which apparently frees up money from the state and other entities to help considering there is no water to flush toilets, take showers, clean clothes - you know, the basics in life?  

The city immediately got bottled water over to the civics center and started handing that out until it  was gone. They said 8:00 pm, they were out before 5.  There are more truckloads coming. Bottled water isn't that expensive at  the stores, but  that isn't the point. People will panic buy and clear out the shelves quickly.  

Most business shut down quickly and kids were sent home from school before the morning was out. Well, yup, you can't have a school full of people without working toilets.  That would get nasty pretty quickly. 

The REAL problem here is our  water infrastructure and the fact that officials have known for YEARS that it's old, rusted, worn out, valves failing, pipes bursting, needs completely replaced.  In the last 3 weeks, we've had 3 major pipe bursts, but this one by far is the worst. 24 inch line is huge and a lot of water going  through it. 

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It wasn't until 8:30 pm tonight that the school district finally made up it's mind about kids going to class tomorrow morning.  The city had to call out an out - of - town contractor to come in and do the repair, they are estimating that the repair will be completed mid morning. So, the school district said they are going to have class starting at 10:00 am.  I get that they need their money - the school district that is - from the state but at the same time, how on earth do you leave 1,000's of parents up in the air about whether they need to find someone to watch their kids the next day or not?  

But, that's what this town does and has done quite well since I moved here 11 years  ago.  Uh, make that 12 years and wow,  it doesn't seem like I've been here that long! 

Time to go to bed.