A fine operation
I feel pretty sorry for those unfortunate enough to have to work outside when it’s cold like this, the mail carriers and the city maintenance workers must scoff at whininess such as mine. I gained a whole new respect for the city yesterday as I witnessed the repair of a broken water pipe below Sherbrooke street. It started in the night and Tuesday morning the intersection where I live was becoming a large, slushy pond. Water was leaking out, but it was difficult to ascertain where. By 10am, there were men with jackhammers tearing up the street, the winds howling, and the traffic bunching up around them. Then a tractor arrived and dug up chunks of the street and deep down into the ground. The chunks were loaded onto a large truck and hauled off. Men disappeared into the hole for an hour, reappeared and then a cement truck arrived. The cement truck poured some kind of mixture to fill the hole and then two large metal plates were placed over the filled hole. All night long, we endured the thump thump thump of vehicles driving over the plates. But then, first thing this morning, men with paving equipment arrived, filled the remaining inches with asphalt, ironed it with a big roller, and now you can’t even tell anything happened. I was highly impressed with both the speed and organisation with which the problem was rectified. And with the untenable climatic conditions, it was even more impressive.
Related posts:
I suppose they’ve been left with little to do this winter since there’s only been one major snow removal operation. That said, it’s quite commendable. Even construction sites have been closed these last few days.