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Plumbing and Katrina

August 29th, 2005 at 03:10 am

Last night the toilet broke -- landlord time! The shutoff value is busted, so when the back of the toilet recharges its water it keeps going, and water goes into the overflow valve into the bowl and keeps going and going, overflowing the bowl. So the drill is: water is now turned off to the toilet, use the toilet, flush, then lift up the cover on the back, turn on the water, watch it recharge until it gets to the level its supposed to, then turn off the water to the toilet. We don't have kids so its inconvenient but if the landlord doesn't respond in a couple of days its time to hit up the Seattle tenants union.

Of course this plumbing problem is nothing compared to anyone in New Orleans facing hurricane Katrina. I'm not a religious person, but I'm praying for the best. In 1996, we were in Raleigh, North Carolina and rode out hurricane Fran. Raleigh's inland and is actually one of the places that the Outer Banks folks evacuate to, but that time the eye of Fran passed over Raleigh. Fran was a category 3.

The hurricane actually wasn't the worse part, it was the aftermath. Thousands of trees were down, there was flooding in low lying areas, the big mall was flooded in three feet of water, no gas to be had because the pumps needed electricity to operate, little or no fresh water. It took some neighborhoods in Raleigh 3 weeks to get power because the utility cables were buried underground. When an uprooted tree snapped those cables, the power company had to dig to find the break. People didn't get back to work for weeks. If you were living from paycheck to paycheck (like I was), it was a catastrophe.

The twin habits of frugality and kindness really, really come into their own in times like that. Good luck and God bless you, New Orleans.

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