water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink

Did you know that when someone runs over a fire hydrant, it really does spray up in an enormous fountain just like in the movies?

One of our clients called this morning and had this new water feature in their parking lot. A truck was backing up to the dock and the hydrant was out of the line of sight. It was a 6" line running for about 10 minutes before it got turned off. I don't know the math of how much water that is, but maybe 50,000 gallons. The parking lot was completely full of water and the street was full from curb to curb.

Dave had to leave our office in a hurry to get a new hydrant installed for them. When he woke up this morning, he had plans to sit in a chair all day and work on blueprints. You just never know what is going to come our way.

fyi - if you ever actually do run over a fire hydrant on the surface streets, it probably won't spray like that. The on/off valves for most hydrants on the street are way underground with a stem that connects up through the top of the hydrant, so the barrel of the hydrant is dry. This one at this warehouse was a "wet barrel" hydrant and was under pressure right to the top of the hydrant. I'm just telling you this in case you run over one someday and are disappointed that you don't get a dramatic spray of water.