How to find about problems like the water situation in Bandon

Posted by Conor O'Neill on Sunday, June 3, 2007

We lost water around 2am Saturday and it returned dark brown at around 2pm. Does anyone know what the back story is and whether the water is safe to drink?

I would encourage Cork CoCo to immediately fire the arsehole at the end of the “All other emergencies” phone line listed in the Green Pages. My wife rang this cretin at 6am to report the water problem and find out what was wrong. She had already tried and failed to get through to the local engineers office. The bozo claimed that the number was only for reporting road problems. When asked for an alternative number he said she should check the Green Pages! No amount of arguing could convince this criminal waste of taxpayers money that she had rung the relevant listed number.

I headed to SuperValu to get bottled water at approx 11am to discover it was not just Old Chapel but all of Bandon that was out. Given that the incompetent fool at the end of the phone line is the only way we have of finding out the status of a problem like this, how does Cork CoCo propose to keep residents informed of problems, resolutions and warnings?

Maybe someone should tell them about this amazing new system called d’internet. If small Pacific Islands can set up web based warning systems for tsunamis, is it beyond the wit of Cork CoCo to have similar here? Of course they’d probably put the professionally negligent buffoon who mans the phone line in charge of it.

In the interim I am looking into putting together a very simple problem reporting and viewing system using something like Twitter or Jaiku. You would be able to send problems/resolutions using a web browser, SMS or Instant Message. e.g. broken water mains, ESB failures, car crashes etc.


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