So, on the note of funny things Universities do, here are two emails I received today:
This one, titled “Water Main UPDATE” was received at 6:42pm
8/30/07 6:00 p.m. Update – Water Main Break Affects Campus:
Pittsburgh city officials are continuing work to repair a major water main break in Oakland near the corner of Centre Avenue and North Dithridge Street. The break is affecting water service to campus as well as to residents in Oakland, Squirrel Hill, Greenfield and Shadyside.
Available water is safe to drink and bathroom facilities may be used to the degree water pressure allows. Greg Tutsook, executive director of the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority is asking affected residents with low water pressure to conserve water as much as possible.
It is expected that water service will be restored sometime after midnight, with full pressure in the system by 6 a.m. tomorrow. Campus buildings have either low water pressure or no water. To the degree that there is water, pressure is better on the lower floors of buildings, therefore the use of available restroom facilities on the lower floors is encouraged. Air conditioning capacity is also reduced in many facilities.
Portable restrooms have been delivered to the Morewood Gardens Parking Lot and in front of the Margaret Morrison Plaza on Margaret Morrison Street.
Temporary cooling equipment has been ordered to keep essential network servers and computing equipment working.
Bottled water is available at the various campus dining facilities.
Evening classes at the Heinz School have been cancelled.
Experiments dependent on water and air conditioning should be shut down as soon as possible.
Resident students with special needs should rely on their residence life staff for support.
A further update will be posted at www.cmu.edu and at my.cmu.edu [Me: link won’t work for non-CMU people] by 10 p.m. Thursday, August 30th.
And this one, titled “Water Main follow up” was received at 6:59pm
Dear Campus Resident,
Assessment and repair of the water main break in Oakland has begun, but we
still have no estimate on when full water service will be restored.
Campus dining facilities are almost all still open and serving for dinner
and late-night.
Port-a-johns have arrived on campus and have been placed behind Morewood
Gardens and on Margaret Morrison Street near the Margaret Morrison Plaza.
Please continue to check www.cmu.edu or the portal for regular updates.
Thank you.
Does this mean that there won’t be water by 6am tomorrow? On the note of servers kept cool, they’ve locked the cluster downstairs because of the water shortage. We were all confuzed until we realized that the water shortage was effecting the AC, not the computer’s internal cooling systems. For non-CMU people, “clusters” are computer labs. We call them clusters because it sounds cooler–and geekier. And the thing about the AC being shut down in kind of funny, since most dorms do not have AC and the dorms who do–did–have it were really obnoxious about it. Seriously, at spirit competitions, I think they had cheers about their AC. If you don’t believe me, try living in Pittsburgh without AC.
Inspirational quote:
John Maynard Keynes — “The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent”
PS: go here for images of what has varyingly described as “gushing” water, “a river” and “white-water-rapids” in Oakland area.
