Well, no. But it was unnerving for a few minutes. At 4:15am I was awakened by a very loud steady roar. After a few minutes I figured out that it was water flowing/rushing somewhere. I looked out the window and saw water glistening on the cul-de-sac’s asphalt. Shortly thereafter I heard people talking, and I eventually heard some clanking noises like those made when a sprinkler handle is opening an access cover. I decided there was nothing I could do about it, and surely some one of the people who owned one of those voices I heard would call the Department of Water and Sewer.

Got up this morning and here’s what it looked like. All the cars have been moved out of the cul-de-sac and so have all the refuse cans (good timing: they were all out on the sidewalk for pickup). I’m not sure who set the cones.

So now, eight hours later, here’s what’s going on. One front-end loader has been here to excavate the asphalt and dirt to make a hole for the crew to get at the big underground water pipe (installed in the late 1960s when the subdivision was built). There have been two DWS trucks here all day, one serving as a dump truck to hold all the dirt the loader carried out of the hole, the other presumably with specialized equipment. They’ve dug up a hole about twenty feet long and ten feet wide, and in this picture there’s one (or more) guys down in the hole inspecting the damage.

It’s unclear if any of our neighbors has lost water service; we have not. If no one has, I’ll bet these guys quit around 4:00pm and come back tomorrow morning. If there is a customer without water they may work until they get it fixed.