350,000 people without fresh water

[Dryce]

That's a bigger challenge, but there really ought to be the capability to get water from an adjacent town. Maybe the water demand of 350,000 people makes such an idea impossible, I don't know?

You've got to consider the problem of both supply of the raw water and *treatment*.

In years gone by there was a coherent strategy for power generation that covered different types of generation (coal, oil/gas, nuclear, hydro) and ensured that there was breadth and depth of spare capacity to deal with planned maintenance and breakdowns.

It was probably at its strongest in the mid eighties. (Coincident with the miners' strike.)

These days ....

 

[glojo]

It was probably at its strongest in the mid eighties. (Coincident with the miners' strike.)

These days ....

???????

I can't even begin to get my head around the awful problems the water authority must be having to deal with and no way would I criticise without knowing all the facts. Having lost the water then the logistics behind getting drinking water to all those victims must be considerable and extremely challenging?

Regards
John

 

[grober]

???????

I can't even begin to get my head around the awful problems the water authority must be having to deal with and no way would I criticise without knowing all the facts. Having lost the water then the logistics behind getting drinking water to all those victims must be considerable and extremely challenging?

Regards
John

Not wishing to quibble here John but don't you mean water company rather than water authority. The days when water supply and sewerage/waste water was in the hands of a publicly accountable authority are surely long gone. These days the organisation providing water supplies to the general public may have more than their "customers" to answer to. Their shareholders for example?? Severn Trent Water http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_Trent_Water would not appear to be squeaky clean in that respect according to WIKIPEDIA. quote:-
"In 2005, the company was ordered by Ofwat to repay £4M to customers that it overcharged them and is currently being investigated by the serious fraud office over financial irregularities. Additionally, in February 2006, following an internal investigation, the company admitted to have misreported Customer Relations data submitted to OFWAT, a number of senior level resignations followed this disclosure".

Some of the more cynical among us regarded the privatisation of the water authorities as " a licence to print money" since a huge captive customer base with no choice of alternative supplier were delivered into the hands of the shareholders of the a private company albeit "regulated" by OFWAT.

edit:- In the interests of fairness I should perhaps add that these comments should not distract in any way from the sterling work done by the "front line troops" of the aformentioned company who I am sure are doing their best to restore services to their customers after this natural disaster.

 

[glojo]

Not wishing to quibble here John but don't you mean water company rather than water authority.

Some of the more cynical among us regarded the privatisation of the water authorities as " a licence to print money" since a huge captive customer base with no choice of alternative supplier were delivered into the hands of the shareholders of the a private company albeit "regulated" by OFWAT..

Your quite correct and my terminology was referring to the people responsible for restoring water but to those that are suffering.

I fully agree with your comments that I have highlighted and here in the west country we have the highest water bills in the country?? (Devon & Cornwall) and yes the folks that are in charge of the 'companies' tend to award themselves offensive bonus payments.

 

[Tigger 1]

Only been without water once in my life, that was a 2 week controlled excersise. My heart goes out to all without drinking water.
You would think this day and age there would be better provisions for this situation.