geysir in the chilterns....

[eeyore]

... not a suprising natural phenonem to put wendover on the map and rival yellowstone unfortunately . In reality it is a high pressure water main burst - thames water took , would you believe it , nearly 3 flippin hours to get round to turning it off

[Dan Salter]

At least someones garden got watered this summer !

[Jonny]

Nice shots Eeyore, I could do with driving my landrover over that to clean off the chassis..........

[eeyore]

the best calculation of the ammount of water lost is 19800 cubic metres - to put this in context that is enough to fill 52 swimming pools , or to water every garden in the village for the duration of the hot spell - its great to see thames water taking the conservation of water so seriously

[Mr Mag00]

outrageous!!!!

[Jonny]

Originally Posted by eeyore

the best calculation of the ammount of water lost is 19800 cubic metres - to put this in context that is enough to fill 52 swimming pools , or to water every garden in the village for the duration of the hot spell - its great to see thames water taking the conservation of water so seriously

How can it be helped though, the ground is drying up and splitting the pipes............

[Dan Salter]

well the fact that most pipework is so old fashioned and out of date may be a part of it although the houses in pic look fairly modern?

[glsammy]

You can forgive the fact the pipe burst but the 3 hours to turn it off is almost criminal.

[henrya]

Quote
You can forgive the fact the pipe burst but the 3 hours to turn it off is almost criminal.
Endquote

Except that turning it off might cut off water to say, a hospital, and arranging alternative supplies might not be easy. But if it is just incompetence .............

henrya

[Andy Warne]

Originally Posted by henrya

Quote
You can forgive the fact the pipe burst but the 3 hours to turn it off is almost criminal.
Endquote

Except that turning it off might cut off water to say, a hospital, and arranging alternative supplies might not be easy. But if it is just incompetence .............

henrya

Given their track record I know which one I'd put my money on...

"Thames was expected last year to cut its average daily leakage rate to 860 million litres, but only managed to reduce it to 894 million."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5143912.stm

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by henrya

Quote
You can forgive the fact the pipe burst but the 3 hours to turn it off is almost criminal.
Endquote

Except that turning it off might cut off water to say, a hospital, and arranging alternative supplies might not be easy. But if it is just incompetence .............

henrya

This was a high pressure main , from a pumping station to a water storage reservoir, so turning it off would have had no effect on hospitals etc evidenced by the fact that when they did finally turn it off, our water supply was unaffected.

Apparently the reason they took so long was that the crew had to come from guildford because this was the closest depot with staff working on that day and their regulations dont allow them to turn it off without a member of staff seeing it first

Also they did not consider it a hazard despite the fact it was hurling bricks 60 ft into the air (the black specks on the top photo are bricks and bits of tarmac , i was wearing a hard hat when i took these)-the police and the fire brigade both of whom were there two and a half hours earlier were not ammused.

A guy who lives further down our road still has an unplanned water feature in his back garden !

[jennyb]

Originally Posted by Andy Warne

Given their track record I know which one I'd put my money on...

"Thames was expected last year to cut its average daily leakage rate to 860 million litres, but only managed to reduce it to 894 million."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5143912.stm

We are supplied Thames Water and in the 20 years that I have been living here there has hardly been a single day without a leak somewhere in the village They fix one and another pops open - none quite so spectacular as this one though!

We have a "semi-natural" pond in our garden. It is supplied by a spring. However, we strongly suspect that most of its contents are courtesy of Thames Water.

Jenny

[pheonix]

Apart from the loss of water and the obvious damage to the road was there any other damage or injuruies?

[eeyore]

thankfully no injuries - I have to say the police , fire brigade and bucks cc emergency response team were excellent and were very efficient at keeping people out of the fallout zone (except for a stupid photographers wearing a hard hat who went in close at their own risk , though to be fair they wouldnt have let me in had i not had the hard hat)

several houses sustained damage to rooves from falling bricks and one was flooded to about 6" , plus a couple of cars got bricks on the roof and / or through the windscreen.