Posted on 05/02/2007 8:13:18 AM PDT by freespirited
Dozens of fire hydrants across the District are not in working order, including the two closest to Monday's fire at the D.C. public library in Georgetown.
Fire and union officials say the faulty hydrants often aren't discovered until a fire breaks out, as was the case in Georgetown....
The city has struggled for years to keep hydrants in good working order, firefighters said. With nearly 9,300 hydrants citywide, keeping up with inspections can be difficult, they said. Some broken hydrants are clearly marked, but only those that have been identified as needing repair. The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority oversees the maintenance of the hydrants.
"The way we find out a hydrant isn't working is when we pull up to one and connect to the hydrant," said Dan Dugan, president of the D.C. Firefighters Association. "If it's not working, we connect to another one. It just slows us down."
Dugan said the firefighters union has been complaining for years about problems.
No one was hurt in the library fire, but numerous artifacts were damaged or endangered as the flames spread across the 1935 building.
Yesterday, fire officials released a list -- compiled by WASA -- that identified 53 hydrants in need of repair or replacement. They are scattered throughout the city: 15 in Southeast, 12 in Northeast and 26 in Northwest. Some leak; some have defective parts; and some yield no water. WASA officials played down the extent of the problems.
But questions arose about the accuracy of the list. The two locations in Georgetown were not on it....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Chocolate City.
DC is the PERFECT example of what happens when GOVERNMENT RUNS EVERYTHING!
Twice a year the FD comes around in my neighborhood and flushes out the fire hydrants. Is this a common in your neighborhood also.
No guns. (except for the criminal class)
No fire hydrants
No freedom
Corrupt polititians.
It's a liberal paradise!
53 out of 9000 plus out of order as stated in the article.
Hardly sounds like a concern or a reason to need to write an article about the issue.
sounds like the job is getting done....bet the 53 not working have parts that can no longer be replaced and installing new ones could cost a small fortune.
Many FD have tanks of water now a days so that could get the show on the road untill optional hydrants are located in the areas.
53 out-of-service hydrants out of 9,300 is no big deal. The problem is one of having an adequate hydrant maintenance program, good communication with the FD and a rapid repair process.
DC doesn’t sound like the kind of place that promotes that sort of thing.
Well then, that means there are 53 “parking spaces” available for the SUV’s that John Kerry’s “family” owns.
I’ve seen our City FD and the local volunteer FD come by and fill their tanker trucks from various fire hydrants. They use hydrants on all the main streets to fill their “brush” trucks. They flush 50 - 100 gallons before refilling their tankers.
Yet another reason to move the government out of DC.
LOL
Beat cha by almost 2minutes. : )
I am pinging sgtbono for an expert opinion on this. The article does say that the DC firefighters have been complaining for years about the situation, and I figure they ought to know if this is a problem.
I meant the post above for you. What do you think?
Now think about it - how much can go mechanically wrong with a fire hydrant? Other that the water supply and a valve - there ain’t a lot there.
dvwjr
Just the headline triggered 15 minutes of ruinations on my part about this place. I have a love-hate personal relationship with DC, which is irrelevant here, but the bottom line is that I view it as a nice place to visit... in the classical sense.
To get the main issue out of the way, all cities of similar size have an equal number of hydrants, and I personally am aware that normally, in a sane city, every hydrant in town is tested at least once a year, and immediately repaired if a problem is found.
But my dim view of the place is that functionally the corruption is as pervasive, or more so, than in New Orleans.
The founding fathers knew what they were doing. What they failed to account for is the "unimagineable". That the common sense decision not to consider the district just another state or city was wise beyond words. The unimagineable" part is in their inability, literally, to see that this view might change over time; so they failed to provide for the return of the territory and administrative functions to the respective states, Maryland and Virginia, should the issue of voting and representation ever raise its ugly head. The city was viewed as an administrative center, not a permanent resdential place.
The problems with giving it equal rights as states is absurd. Might as well allow a banana republic equal status.
You want the status and the wealth of being part of the central government? Deal with voting back home. Your status as national actors in the drama far outweigh my puny one vote (easily neutralized by your catering to illegals, as an example).
Am I the only one who thinks that having working hydrants is not an unreasonable expectation from an administrative entity? as a basic requirement of government?
The 53 out of 9,000 are just the ones we know about. How many are there we dont know about.
Is there a problem in DC ? Damn straight there is.
The Fire Department is taking a back seat to the EMS Ambulance service.
Fire Apparatus is being run to death chasing Ambulance calls. Firefighters are being used as Ambulance technicians.
Drills, Training, Tests are all being put off or ignored while firefighters are out on a $400,000 piece of equipment standing by waiting for an ambulance to respond to a bloody nose.
Inspections of buildings are being put on the back burner as well as inspections of Fire hydrants.
The new fire Chief doesnt even know the rules on Employee Hiring and firing as he went out and made a public statement firing an employee when he doesnt have that authority according to rules and regs and Union Contract.
It appears Fenty went to Atlanta to find a white Stepinfetchit to do his bidding.
Things are bad and morale sucks. They have the finest equipment now in DC that they have ever had in my memory and yet they spend most of their time running the road standing in for Ambulances.
I've spent a good portion of my adult life thinking about it. I've installed, repaired or replaced hundreds of fire hydrants.
Some of the things that go wrong with hydrants are:
Damaged threads to nozzle outlets.
Damaged or worn operating stem packing.
Damaged operating stems.
Damaged or worn balatas (think large outlet washer).
Impact damage from vehicles.
Damaged or worn internal and external stem bushings.
Damaged or broken main line hydrant valves.
Damaged or broken hydrant pipe runs, burys and extensions.
There are actually quite a few parts to a hydrant, more than most people realize.
An appropriate comment in more than one way. Two or three years before Katrina, there were news stories in New Orleans about this very subject. The Fire Department had one map of the city's hydrants and the Water Board had another. Although both maps showed all the hydrant locations, each office used a different database for tracking maintenance, damage reports, repairs, etc. Neither could "see" the other's data.
AFAIK, that problem was never rectified before the place went under water.
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