Baltimore City Plumbing

OK, so it's November now. Getting cold. We had a frost warning and it got mighty cold the other night. You know, typically fall stuff. Typically followed very closely by winter. With winter...that's right, we get even more cold. We're in Baltimore, fairly mid-atlantic so I'm not saying that it's Vermont or anything, but it gets cold....cold enough, for, say, water to freeze.

That established, about a month or more ago, for some reason, PVC piping with rubber hose offshoots were laid out along the curb line in the street along a few roads here in the neighborhood. These PVC pipes appear to be bypassing the water main so they can do work on it or something. But there's been a catch. They're not actually doing any work. They put in the pipes and left them...and left them...and left them...until two days ago when the frost watch was issued someone in the city office said "HOLY CRAP, IT'S GETTING COLD! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH THESE ABOVE GROUND PVC PIPES?" I'm picturing a scene where either they forgot that the new pipes were out there, or simply no one had ever considered that maybe water would freeze one day.

The issues runs a little deeper. The water mains in Baltimore are so old that last winter alone, 3 water mains broke in our neighborhood alone. This is not unique to our neighbor hood, and considering we make up, maybe, 5% of this 550,000 person city. This past summer 4 water mains broke, that I heard about, throughout the city. When water mains are breaking in the summer at that kind of rate, shouldn't some alarm bells be sounding? Well, it turns out that the city knows the water mains will continue to break. Why? Because the city never budgeted or planned for a systematic upgrade. So, they're just fixing them as they break instead of doing any preventative maintenance at all.

With that little tidbit, let's go back to our above ground PVC piping situation. Wow, maybe they're bypassing the water main so they can upgrade this part of the water system! So let's be optimistic and say that's what's going on. Then they forgot that they started the project. Then we had a freeze. And the pipes froze. And the pipes cracked. And the water started leaking from this tenuous system. So they had to turn to someone for help. Who do they turn to? Marion Barry. Yes, Marion S. Barry. I'm serious. The mayor of Washington DC until 1999. You remember him, I don't need to remind you of his hobbies.

I want to make clear that I do not live in Washington DC. Baltimore, yes, is about 40 miles from DC, but we have our own mayor, zip codes, post office, everything. And by the way, there is no Broadway anywhere near my neighborhood. So I was walking to work yesterday, the day after the freeze, and, well, ladies and gentlemen, let's just go to the picture...

I have run out of words to use. I am confused.