Anyone had "one of those days"?

[Mastiff]

Yesterday, due to a forest fire started just outside of town, our power is cut off. 10 acres, zero containment, right under the power lines.

So, not much work gets done in the afternoon on the computer. But, it gets better. I have to get my crews working to conserve water, and spot for the fires so it doesn't hop the river and come barrelling into town.

I, of course, get this week to be in charge of the city.

Now, around 4 hours later, we check the water tank, and lo and behold, we have 2 hours of water left. And we know at five p.m., when people get home from work, that water is gone.

Call a town 45 minutes away, find a big portable generator that can handle 440 three-phase, and 160 hp motors to run our well pumps. We get it... race for it... call the power company to help switch it over... and boom, we run it for 30 seconds and the power is restored.

Then, around 6:30, we finally get the wires re-hooked up to the main lines... and the tanks start to fill. After all the things we do when the power is restored are finally done, it's after 7:00.

That's when I bought my crew a beer... at the only bar in town with a generator to keep it cold! :buck



By the way, the fire is now over 50 acres, and while still in some danger, it seems to be moving the other direction.

 

[Tranplanner]

No, I can honestly say that in my line of work I've never had to deal with a situation like that.

Around here the biggest crisis seems to be when the photocopier breaks down (again) or the laser printer runs out of toner.

Good luck!

 

[Chet]

The town I'm in had a dam breach in '98, just before I started work here. Chaos ruled for a week, thank g*d I wasn't here.

 

[el Guapo]

We once had a life threatening killer blizzard and the citizen/jerks bitched about the county letting nonesential employes go home early so that they could hunker down for the next two days. Some wanted to know why they couldn't get a building permit during a blizzard.

 

[Downtown]

Christ, Mastiff - I thought I was having a bad week because I had to deal with a neighbor lady screaming murder about three trees that were cut out of the woods next to her house. Can you take next week off?

 

[Mastiff]

Christ, Mastiff - I thought I was having a bad week because I had to deal with a neighbor lady screaming murder about three trees that were cut out of the woods next to her house. Can you take next week off?

So the City Admin can come back and dump all his piles onto my desk?! Not a chance...

Besides, I live for this... I just got back from the mobile fire HQ. Looks like they're going to keep it out of the damned power lines, at least... If the wind kicks up bad, and it gets into the deciduous trees along the river, it's evac time.