Although I've been writing quite a bit lately on the plight of the folks in the Gulf Coast hurricane zone, naturally I've been writing from a sympathetic, but distantly removed, perspective. Never having had to evacuate in the face of a storm and never having coped with losing everything I own, it's true that I have been in the position of being an observer with no first-hand experience.
Until the past 24 hours when for some reason, the water supply at our New Jersey home has been compromised - although not by natural disaster. My mother's home is supplied by a well. The house is 43 years old and at some time over the past 8-10 years she did have a new pump and cold water tank put in. And just a month ago, I had a plumber in here to work on the leaky pipe that goes from the cold water tank into the house.
So it's not like all the equipment is 43 years old. But the well, itself, IS. And that's what has us concerned, as since about 2pm yesterday we started getting no water or gritty dirty water, and periodically having the pump shut down altogether because for some reason it tripped its dedicated circuit breaker. Then for a while it would work again and we thought it might be OK (and forget trying to get anyone to come and look at your well or pump on a Sunday) - I was eventually able to finish my last load of pre-vacation laundry and run the dishwasher last night without further mishap. But this morning I woke up and found the toilet wouldn't refill itself after a flush - the pump/breaker had shut down overnight for some reason, again. And we're back to panic again because we have no consistently clean water and no idea what's really going on. Is it the pump? The electric? The well itself? Who knows?
I ran out to the market (without having fixed my hair or brushed my teeth - no water with which to do either( to stock up on bottled water. You can't flush with out it, never mind washing dishes, brushing your teeth or bathing, and I know that what's REALLY important in life is to have a working toilet!
We can't get the well guy out here until at least tomorrow, either. So, we've got 12 gallon jugs of cheap water for dishes and sponge-bathing; better quality spring water for drinking; and several buckets of water from the neighbor's outdoor spigot for back-up flushing water.
What we first thought was an electrical problem with the pump and the breaker, we now fear is the well itself, going DRY. Oh. My. God. I feel my mother's pain about that - she's retired and on a fixed income and a new well is thousands of dollars, and my finances won't allow me to contribute to the expense if that's what needs to happen. My sister just spent over $10K getting a new well drilled at the site of their under-construction new home because they had to drill down over 960 feet. Well drilling is not an exact science - the water table can be at one level here, and at another level 30 feet to the left or right over there.
So right now, we simply don't know what the problem is. What I do know is my sympathy for the hurricane victims - especially those in New Orleans, who had no water or working plumbing for days and days and had to live in indescribable conditions in the Superdome and elsewhere - has just skyrocketed even further. And at least we know that, whatever our problem, it will be resolved within a couple of days, and we can cope for a few days although I may be showering at my sister's house for the next few nights. There is just something about even the prospect of "no water" that makes you really, really thirsty.
And grateful for each and every working flush.
