No Water Tonight

NoDice

Hey lads and ladies,

Just heard from a work collegue that the water will be turned off for everyone who has had water up until now tonight from 8pm - 7am the following morning.

Apparently they are doing this to build up a water reserve?

Just a heads up!

If you have any questions we were told to call 1800 283034 free phone to the Water Remains Dept in the City Hall.

We've been advised to collect as much water as we need for tonight.

Good luck!

Milly33

Oh thanks for the heads up...You think that they would put a notice up on the City Council website or something well in saying that I havent checked so ill do it there...

NoDice

Milly33 wrote: »

Oh thanks for the heads up...You think that they would put a notice up on the City Council website or something well in saying that I havent checked so ill do it there...

Cool. No bothers. I ahven't checked the site either to be honest. Just one of the girls here has been without water(living in the north side) for over a week now so she called the C. Hall to ask when it'll be back on and that's what she was told. Eek! Happy I've a day off tomorrow now so I can have a shower when it's back on.

cornbb

I've checked the website (it takes 10 seconds to do so) and there is no mention of cutting supplies, only restoring.

There have been rumours like this flying around for weeks. Maybe more places will be cut off, but anyone passing around news like this as truth should be able to substantiate it.

miss_shadow

I know what I want to do with the water I do have
get a bucket and lob it over the council!

NoDice

cornbb wrote: »

I've checked the website (it takes 10 seconds to do so) and there is no mention of cutting supplies, only restoring.

There have been rumours like this flying around for weeks. Maybe more places will be cut off, but anyone passing around news like this as truth should be able to substantiate it.

I'm aware of how long it takes to check the website, I was going by information received by somebody, who I'd consider to be a reliable source, who was speaking to someone directly in the City Council.

Out of interest I just called the number I provided, spoke to a lovely lady who stated a new press release will be up on the website shortly to inform everyone of this outage.

She explained there are leaks in the system, they are losing alot of water and so must turn it off tonight to fix this issue.

She said if you have had water up to this point you will still have to use of the water in your tanks until that runs out.

She said the water will be turned back on at 6am.

NoDice

Look TBH I'm just passing on the info, you can call the number (it's freephone) if you think I'm just starting rumours. G'Luck!

cornbb

Sorry, didn't mean to sound ratty. I'm just wary after hearing the same thing several times over the past weeks. Here's hoping everyone has water tonight.

gimmick

Well both Red and 96FM are both reporting that all affected areas will be back this evening, so doubt (and hope) the OP is incorrect.

NoDice

cornbb wrote: »

Sorry, didn't mean to sound ratty. I'm just wary after hearing the same thing several times over the past weeks. Here's hoping everyone has water tonight.

No bothers, it's fine, really just passing on info. You're right too cause I was told town was flooded last night so sorry if it is a rumour.

Just to let you know though, ethy're very helpful over the phone and that's what she told me. Had to ring cause you were right about substantiating my claim.

gimmick wrote: »

Well both Red and 96FM are both reporting that all affected areas will be back this evening, so doubt (and hope) the OP is incorrect.

That's the last report on the council website but again they say otherwise on the phone and the agent I spoke to said they are going to be updating the website "shortly". Still hasn't been done though.

Again though I hope it's not the case!

oeb

NoDice wrote: »

That's the last report on the council website but again they say otherwise on the phone and the agent I spoke to said they are going to be updating the website "shortly". Still hasn't been done though.

Again though I hope it's not the case!

Did they say if it will affect the entire city or only certain areas? (I'm in Douglas)

Barracudaincork

Just spoke to them and it will be off tonight between 8pm and 6am not in all areas but it appears to be mainly the north side that is affected, judging by the areas i asked about (for various colleagues).

oeb

Barracudaincork wrote: »

Just spoke to them and it will be off tonight between 8pm and 6am not in all areas but it appears to be mainly the north side that is affected, judging by the areas i asked about (for various colleagues).

They have posted some info up on their site, but it's not too clear what is happening and where it is happening.

NoDice

oeb wrote: »

They have posted some info up on their site, but it's not too clear what is happening and where it is happening.

But that's why they include the number...............

Anyway! Good luck with it, hope you're not affected

BanzaiBk

http://twitter.com/lauramcgonigle/status/7713524420

Laura McGonigle - Deputy Mayor wrote:

Cork City Council will be restricting the night-time supply of water tonight, in areas where major losses occur. From 8pm - 6am. Please RT

BanzaiBk

Laura McGonigle's Blog wrote:

As a result of the recent sever weather condidtions, the water supply in Cork City has been asdversely effected.

City Council is confident that normal daytime water supply will now be maintained across the city. But in order to safeguard supply pending the repair of existing and emerging leaks, night-time supply restrictions will be in operation in parts of the city – especially those areas where major losses occur.

The Council’s intention is to minimise the impact for consumers and so supplies in these areas will be restricted after 8pm and restored in the morning at 6am.

The conservation of water is essential and the Council is asking the public:

* not to fill baths or hoard water and
* to repair any leaks on private property as quickly as possible.

The public is also being advised that localised problems of frozen domestic pipes continue to disrupt supply to individual houses. These difficulties are not associated with the network supply and will resolve themselves once ground temperatures rise sufficiently.

The demands on the network remain extremely high due largely to the leaks arising. Repair crews are carrying out ongoing leak detection and repair work and it is envisaged that this will continue into next week.

As a precautionary measure a Boil Water Notice was issued yesterday and applies to this area only. It is hoped that the Boil Water Notice will be lifted before the weekend – further notice to issue in due course.

Freephone number 1800 283034, 8am to 8pm. Outside these hours, please telephone Emergency Number: 021 4966512

Via Laura McGonigle's blog, no other politician as on the ball at the moment in Cork imo.

cornbb

BanzaiBk wrote: »

http://twitter.com/lauramcgonigle/status/7713524420

NoDice, I take it back

NoDice

CHAMPION! -

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news though!!! Hope everyone gets through tonight ok and that not everyone is affected too badly if at all.

Solair

This is really starting to do my head-in.

I honestly don't think I can take much more of this kind of nonsense. It just makes me feel more and more like emigrating.

We seem to have totally 3rd world infrastructure!

What are the water pipes made out of ? Papier-mâché??

The first I've heard of this is a Tweet!

Many of my neighbours had absolutely no idea whatsoever that the water was going to be off.

The City Council really needs to at the very least get its act together when it comes to communication if it can't manage to actually operate effective infrastructure.

The least they could do is tell us when the 'system' is expected to blow-up / implode / generally collapse, so that we can have an opportunity to seek asylum in a part of the city with actual working infrastructure.

What do you want them to do, knock on every door in the county, stuff happens, no water for a night, hardly a hugely critical event.

colblimp

Well it's 20:07 and my water is still on...

Solair

RoverJames wrote: »

What do you want them to do, knock on every door in the county, stuff happens, no water for a night, hardly a hugely critical event.

Well in properly run countries, they run actual information updates on ALL local and national tv/radio stations.

They might actually ensure that radio / tv stations broadcast these messages under their public service remit, which ALL of them have.

Our excuse for a public service broadcaster, RTE, basically behaves as local Dublin TV/Radio most of the time.

A few half-assed announcements without any detail about how some households in Cork (or something) might have not water, simply isn't good enough.

They even have things like regional text alerts that can go out to all mobile phones in places like Scandinavia.

In the United States, there's a full EBS (Emergency Broadcast System) which can scroll text across ALL tv stations on cable, and on air in any given area, or even interrupt programming.

There's also an established communications system which sets out protocols for how urgent, and non-urgent information about storms, infrastructural breakdown, etc is communicated to local and national media outlets e.g. it sends proper news feeds / info etc to the right people at the right time.

Not just throw a message up on a website somewhere and hope it's picked up on.

It's a hugely critical event if you discover that it means that you can't go to work without having to shower in a friends house or a hotel.

It's also a hugely critical event if you're sick.

This country is basically just not managed / run at all.

It's utterly ridiculous.

I don't know why we bother to pay tax!

Papa_Lazarou

Do people not listen to he radio or TV nowadays anymore? I heard of this at 9am going to college this morning. Once again people are putting the blame on the City council for this when id say 80% of the blame lays on the citizens of the city for the wastage of water. I understand that people worry and want to keep pipes unfrozen etc but you have to deal with the consequences when you do this. The city have been on the radio and tv for the last number of days begging with people to stop the water wastage, the people did not listen, so this is what we end up with.

Solair

Solair wrote: »

This country is basically just not managed / run at all.

It's not that bad to be honest, is it I believe the water is back on in the very early am tomorrow so unless you are a milkman you will be able to have a shower. This country is quite good really overall, folks don't appreciate how good we have it.

deRanged

the water is back at 7 which isn't all that early if you're going to work!

mik_da_man

Depends on how far you live from work

shoegirl

What about headbutting the dumbos who have contributed to the problem by leaving taps running? Like hello?
If we hadn't so many stupid people doing that there would be no need to restrict supplies. :mad::mad::mad:

Had water earlier this evening, but nothing now, so the OP is probably right.

The council probably didn't publicise it because if they did, the same idiots would have spent the day filling up baths and buckets etc and undermining the effort. Can you blame them?

parsi

Solair wrote: »

We seem to have totally 3rd world infrastructure!

What are the water pipes made out of ? Papier-mâché??

Actually we are suffering from having a first world infrastructure as we had plumbed water at a very early stage in our national life.

As a result many of the private distribution pipes into premises are iron (or worse lead) which doesn't really flex very well in shifting ground conditions.

This is common in quite of lot of countries with an aging water infrastructure - probably nearly half of it is in private hands : the pipes that go into our houses. How many people are going to voluntarily go and replace their piping ?

One solution would have been to obliterate the city and rebuild with new flexible piping but after tests by the UK Military in December 1920 it was rejected as being too drastic a step.

shoegirl

shoegirl wrote: »

What about headbutting the dumbos who have contributed to the problem by leaving taps running? Like hello?

I'm honestly not being sarcastic but you sound a very very cool lady

craichoe

parsi wrote: »

Actually we are suffering from having a first world infrastructure as we had plumbed water at a very early stage in our national life.

As a result many of the private distribution pipes into premises are iron (or worse lead) which doesn't really flex very well in shifting ground conditions.

This is common in quite of lot of countries with an aging water infrastructure - probably nearly half of it is in private hands : the pipes that go into our houses. How many people are going to voluntarily go and replace their piping ?

One solution would have been to obliterate the city and rebuild with new flexible piping but after tests by the UK Military in December 1920 it was rejected as being too drastic a step.

I live abroad and my house was built in the late 50's, it was -10 over christmas and -14 on the coldest nights. I had water the whole time.

Water system is run by a private company.

parsi

In fairness I could probably point to a Georgian House that also had water.

I too had water - the only thing that froze was an outlet pipe for the condensate from my boiler.

Do "they" run taps for fear of freezing "abroad" ?

Being run by a private company doesn't always mean a whole lot - the UK water system is privatised but suffers the same problems.

However it's possible that your water company actally treats the network as something in which to invest rather than as a pure cash cow and that is , I suppose, the nub of the problem because the reality is that a fortune of water is leaking out of the system every day.

Solair

Well, if the city had properly enforced water regulations this wouldn't be an issue.

i.e. pipes must be X cm deep, to prevent freezing.

The single biggest issue is very shallowly buried pipes in housing estates and exposed surface-mounted outdoor pipes for things like outdoor taps.

There doesn't seem to be a huge problem with the actual city mains.

All that stuff has to be regulated for, and regulations have to be enforced.

However, we do live in a state run purely in the interests of property developers making a fast buck, so that's not likely to happen.

There were surveys of European capitals and Dublin rated amongst the worst in terms of building energy use. Cork would obviously be quite similar as the regs are the same.

There's something seriously wrong with a mentality which allows regulation / lack of regulation which is against the interest of the greater good.

What we are seeing is the consequences several decades of what is at best incompetence and at worst corruption.

The other difference, is that in most of Europe and the United States, water is metered. So, if you did have a leak you'd damn well fix it or face a massive water bill.

If you've a leak in your house, you normally turn off the water at the mains and call a plumber. In Ireland, you let it run down the drain for a few weeks and consider calling a plumber.

In most houses it's not even possible to isolate a faulty fitting.

e.g. in France, all sinks, toilets, baths, etc have little isolating valves (like what you have for hooking up your washing machine) under the tap.

This means you can change the fitting yourself quite easily without calling in the plumber, and it also means that if, for example, your toilet is leaking water into the bowl, you can switch it off locally until a plumber can get there.

In Ireland the pipe just goes straight into the tap / toilet etc and there's nothing you can do if there's a problem other than let the water flow down the drain.


Also, on the water cut off times.

Our water went off at 9pm and didn't come back on again until 12pm .... very convenient.

There is a significant time lag on the supplies to the higher parts of the city as they take anything up to 6 hours to pressurise enough to allow the water to flow.

I personally think they should avoid switching these areas off as they take so long to come back on again.

IF they need to isolate supplies to fill reservoirs over night, perhaps they should stick to switching off the flat parts of the city?