Tuesday, November 25, 2008

No Water For Roosevelt Island's Manhattan Park On Day After Thanksgiving - Prepare Yourself

Image of Time To Drink Toilet Water from Slate

Imagine it's Friday, the day after gorging on Thanksgiving turkey, stuffing, cranberries, family, friends, football and all the other extras that accompany the holiday. All you want to do is relax, recover and not be bothered by anything.

If you live in Roosevelt Island's Manhattan Park complex that may be difficult to accomplish because you will not have any water for the entire day. RIOC President Steve Shane sends the following message regarding water being shut off at Manhattan Park.
On Friday, November 28, 2008 RIOC is scheduling DEP for the water main shut down and repair, in front of 40 River Road on Main Street. DEP has informed us to notify all building managers that the water will be off for 24 hrs, even though the job may only take 8 hrs it is better to inform all residents of Manhattan Park as well as the Post Office and Gristede's Supermarket that it may take up to 24 hrs.

The buildings and area's that will be effected are, all of Manhattan Park, the Public School PS/IS217, Post Office, Motorgate building and Gristede's.

Please post signs of the water shut down in your buildings and also inform me of your fire protection, reserves of water for fire suppression systems.
Despite it being the Thanksgiving weekend Mr. Shane advises that this is:
Best to be done when school is not in session.
Although I hope we never need it here on Roosevelt Island, the astronauts orbiting the earth in the Space Station are experimenting with ways to make up for the lack of drinking water. From the AP:
After several days without luck, astronauts finally ran a successful test on equipment that turns urine into drinking water — a necessity for supporting the international space station's crew, which will soon double.

"Not to spoil anything, but I think up here the appropriate words are 'Yippee!'" space station commander Mike Fincke told Mission Control early Tuesday morning, shortly before bedtime....

Manhattan Park residents - Be Prepared!

UPDATE - 6:50 PM - Mr. Shane provides the following information regarding schedule change of Manhattan Park water shutdown:
See revised e mail below changing scheduled water shut off. Note shut off will now be either Tuesday or Wednesday night, depending on what is found as a result of the excavation to begin Monday. Apologies to all for inconvenience, but weather is a problem.

"Preparations for the water main shutdown, affecting: Manhattan Park, Gristedes, Motorgate, RIOC Transportation Garage, the US Post Office and PS/IS 217, have been delayed by the inclement weather. DEP and RIOC are forced to postpone the shutdown and repair until next week.

Excavation for the repair will resume Monday morning Dec. 1st.

Depending on the conditions encountered, DEP is tentatively scheduling an evening shutdown for either Tuesday 12/2 or Wednesday 12/3.

The shutdown would occur between 6 :00 PM and 6:30 PM, with an estimated duration of 8 hours. Because of possible repair complications, DEP urges residents to be prepared for a duration of up to 24 hours....
And:
BTW, you can inform your anonymous commenter that the reason it's best to have a water shut down when school is not in session is that the regulations require the school be closed when the water is off for fire safety reasons.
The Friday after Thanksgiving can now be a relaxing day for Manhattan Park residents.

4 comments :

Anonymous said...

We are talking about at least eight hours of absolutely no running water on a day when pretty much everybody is most likely at home. "Best to be done when school is not in session." I don't get this reasoning. I am very sure a school in session is less dependent on water from 8-3 than an entire apartment complex with hundreds of families most likely at home.

Anonymous said...

Good for you - power of the press! Thanks

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the clarification, Mr Shane. If the water is now shut down at 6pm on Tuesday there is still a chance that the school will be without water on the following day in case of problems with the repairs. That would be okay?

Anyway, the new shutdown date and time is so much better now. Thanks for doing it right.

Anonymous said...

The lobby bathrooms at 455 and 425 Main St., both buildings near the Subway and the Tram, will be opened for Manhattan Park Residents during this shut-down. The only requirenment is to have good aim :-).