Stories from Work

Today was a long day, mostly pointless and frustrating, but at the same time pretty funny.

One of the projects that we are working on is installing wireless flow meters in specific manholes all over the Cincinnati area in order to more efficiently monitor the flow conditions in the combined sewers and correlate the data with the rainfall data. The data collected is going to be used to figure out the best way to deal with the combined sewer overflow problems that happen in Cincinnati as a result of our 100 hundred year old sewer systems.

Anyway, one aspect of the job is that we have to go out and climb into the sewer and install these wireless flow meters, which is actually kind of interesting and fun. But anyway, since I am new I am going out with the field crew a lot, but I am not confined-space trained yet so I am not allowed to go into any manholes so I end up doing logistics stuff up on top - taking care of the safety, running different equipment, and so forth. Anyway, today we were working in a manhole on the West side which was rediculously deep, the pipe itself was 19 in diameter and when you get to the bottom you are around 35 - 40 ft underground.

So to make a long story short, we have Eric dangling 10 ft down in the manhole, at the point where the manhole cuts into the roof of the pipe. Now, there were two pipes about about 5 ft down in the manhole above Eric's head, one connected to the nearby retention basin and the other a sanitary coming out of the Family Dollar next door. Before we went in we made sure to ask the Family Dollar if they could possibly not flush their toilets for a couple hours, which they agreed. However, as Eric was dangling in the manhole installing a mounting bracket, to Eric's surprise, somebody flushed a toilet (the Family Dollar people denied it). Of course it proceeded to flow through the pipe and into the manhole directly above Eric's head. Dave and I hear a short scream and see Eric prostrating himself to one side of the pipe to avoid the flow. After 20-30 seconds, it lets up and we pull Eric up to let him get cleaned up a little. We thought it was pretty funny, and to his credit Eric was laughing when we pulled him out. It was even funnier because Eric had decided not to wear the jacket before he went in, even though we warned him that that might happen.

The rest of the day was pretty much a wash. We ended up not being able to install the instruments because it was really old brick and it kept breaking when we would install the tap cons. I got back to the office and worked on some design stuff that I was handed yesterday.

That was my day at work today.