City of Summerland council, have you all thought this through?
Not only the hardship this will put on the elderly, the cost to business of which many will have to shut down, but the question of three days of human waste that will accumulate and have to be dealt with, just for starters.
Water weighs 62 pounds per cubic foot, so how do you expect elderly people to transport a three-day supply to their homes? Where does the waste go, and in what, and during the shutdown and how will it be disposed afterward? How will entities that depend on water to operate — food service, medical services, lodging, food markets, just to name a few?
For those businesses trying to operate, where will all their employees go to the bathroom, in what, and what will they do with it? Are you expecting us to forgo hygiene during the three days?
How will the water needed for basics be stored and where will it come from? Drawn from the system before shutdown or purchased from where? And how does this get to residences?
This is not some minor or incidental interruption of services or a “routine maintenance” measure. I think as time goes by you realize the dimension of what this means.
The valve in question did not last all that long before needing replacement and by this experience you can expect to have to undergo this same event periodically in the future.
I have yet to see an engineering problem that did not have alternate remedies if you look hard enough.
Roy Roope
Summerland