Crazy Day Yesterday

[BWFoster78]

This was such a minor story that I doubt anyone of this forum noticed it but I spent yesterday dealing with it:

LAX Terminal 6 construction mishap fouls water - The Daily Breeze

You see, it was my project that caused the mess.

Basically, I spent all day sitting in Terminal 6. I learned a lot about crisis command centers, a lot of it from a nice LAXPD officer. I also sat with a couple of LAX's PR people for quite a while, including the lady who is in charge of the twitter account. Would you believe that 22,000 people follow LAX on twitter?

Anyway, should I ever decide to write a story wherein I need a plausible scenario in which the potable water system is contaminated by chilled water, I have first hand experience.

 

[Devor]

Geesh, sounds rough.

Do they do something to "chilled air conditioning" water to make it non-drinkable, or was it just not filtered?

 

[BWFoster78]

Chilled water is treated with a chemical rust inhibitor. Overall, the stuff isn't horribly unless you consume it undiluted or if you consume small amounts for long time periods. It is something, however, that they regulate in drinking water to prevent chronic consumption.

The funniest part of the day was when, literally, 50 people from the LA public health dept showed up.

 

[Chilari]

Fun times. It's amazing how much can go wrong on a construction site that somehow manages to not go wrong. On a building the company I work for is building, the programme had to be altered because a rare, protected bird had built a nest on site in spring 2011 in a hard-to-reach location. The other side of the building had to be worked on first while the site team waited for the bird's chicks to fly the nest. No delay in the end, but a major change to sequencing. And since we make a big thing about sustainability and protecting habitats and whatnot, we could hardly just go "nope, bird leaves now."