Tom and Vic hit the street (Updated)

Mayor Vic Fedeli and Coun. Tom Mason learned first-hand today what it’s like to be a public works employee in less than temperate weather conditions.

Despite frigid and wind chill-enhanced temperatures, Fedeli and Mason watched this morning as a crew fixed a problem which caused a fire hydrant to be blown off the pipe in front of the MTO building on McKeown Avenue.

“There likely wasn’t enough thrust-blocking behind it, and the pressure pushed it off the end of the pipe,” said Marc Seguin, manager of the sewer and water department.

“There’s a secondary valve on it, it’s isolated and what we’re trying to do is valve the line down further back so when they expose it there won’t be any pressure on the secondary valve and it won’t blow off while we’re down there.”

Difficult work
Fedeli wants council to get a hands-on feel for how city employees do their jobs and how resources allocated to different departments are used.

Last Friday he and deputy mayor Peter Chirico went on ride-alongs with North Bay Police Service officers.

Today it was public works.

“We’ve found out this is difficult work because you’re at the mercy of the weather. Even if it’s cold and there’s a problem that needs to be fixed, you still have to go out,” Mason said.

“We’re just seeing the infrastructure, seeing how these guys work”

Mason said the job takes a lot of equipment, and a lot of teamwork.

“And we just wanted to come out and see how it’s done,” Mason said.

“It’s easy to sit at a meeting and talk about things but we have to get out and see what these people really do.”

Legitimate downtime
The outing, Fedeli said, opened his eyes, particularly since some down time is involved.

But he now realizes it’s legitimate.

"You show up here at 7:30 in the morning, you begin to work, the pipes are frozen so you need a steamer machine,” Fedeli said.

“So you get back in the truck and you plan what you’re going to do next while you’re waiting for the steamer to show up It comes and opens up the next valve and you go and you realize there’s a lot of trouble a foot under, and so then you have to wait for the concrete breaking machine to show up.”

Not enough resources
Hitting the job site during –37 degree C weather was done by design too, Fedeli added.

“There’s no sensing finding out what they do in middle of summer. These are the true working conditions. That’s what we’ve got to learn.”

Seguin said Fedeli and Mason will also have to learn something else.

“Today’s a prime example of not having enough resources to do valve box inspections so that we don’t go through all this grief prior to shutdown,” Seguin said.

“If we were inspecting them and cleaning them on a regular basis we’d probably have most of the job done by now.”