As Mayor, it is my goal to make sure that the city protects the health, welfare, and safety of all our residents and neighbors. Last night we were faced with the challenge of a major water main break that stopped water service to residents for several hours. Due to this, we are currently under a boil order and will continue to be so until about 7am tomorrow, January 14 2015. This is an inconvenience but one that is critical for our safety.
It must be said that all city departments worked tirelessly last night to make sure that we had water this morning, thank you very much. Additionally, I would like to thank several of our employees by name Jack Harding, Jeff Harding, Augustine Garcia, Adrian Marques, Candy Baruffi, Molly Keane, Ripple Public Relations, Fire Chief Solberg and City Manager Scott Coren for addressing, resolving, and working with me to communicate the issue as soon as possible. Without their hard work residents may have been out of water for much longer and received less timely information. Also, special thanks to public works and the police for keeping our streets safe, and the Alderman who disseminated the updates to their neighbors while we worked to gain control of the problem.
Last night we learned a lot about ourselves as a city. It was again reinforced that our employees are a strength braving below freezing temperatures for over six hours fixing the break. If you have not seen a water main repair before, it is truly amazing. Public Works and Demuth contractors dig a 10 X 10 foot wide hole that is 10 feet deep, with running cold water. They cut and replace the burst pipe as water streams around them. Meanwhile other staff gets back to work and sends out information to news channels, updates our website and Facebook, sends out reverse 911 phone calls and answers questions for aldermen and residents. All this was completed within an hour of knowing all water service was off in the city.
Losing service such as water demonstrates the importance of having reliable staff and resources on hand to work through emergency situations. We will use this situation as an opportunity to evaluate what we did well and where we can improve as a city. I would like to thank everyone that reached out to the city by phone, e-mail or social media and communicating issues to us. We are using your feedback to help make our community stronger. While we go through the inconvenience of the boil order, know that the Alderman, City Staff and I are always striving to provide unparalleled service and appreciate your understanding and patience.
Sincerely,
Mayor Charlie Pecaro