Boiling Point

Boil water alert for some of Washtenaw County. Before we moved out here, we’d never even heard of a boil water alert; now it seems like we’re putting a kettle on the stove every time there’s a sharp breeze.

16 Responses to “Boiling Point”


  1. Must be a bad streak out there. I can remember 2 instances when I had to boil water in 22 years in SE Michigan.


  2. Somebody hit a water main.


  3. I was also told (by somebody in the City Engineering dept.) that they’ve been having a lot of problems since they built the new water tower out Plymouth Road - seems that jacked the pipe pressure in that part of town, and the pipes couldn’t handle the higher pressure, so there have been a lot more breaks.

    He went on to explain that the City Engineers fully expected this result, and in fact half-planned it that way, as a means of triaging which pipes needed to be replaced. . .


  4. I’m surprised to hear this; I’ve lived in A2 for 22 years (Spring Hill Addition past 12) and have never had to boil water…


  5. Every time there is a sharp breeze?? puhleeze…

    Try living out on the edge of Washtenaw and Livingston county … we use to lose power out there about every other storm.

    I can hardly remember any water boil alerts …

    jfc — this is the BEST you can do?


  6. i love this blog and i generally rant right along with you. but i lived in chicago for several years, and i recall at least one boil water alert. if you’re going to complain about the way the county deals with inclement weather, how about mentioning the excessive use of the emergency alert system? there’s no real need to break into programming with a severe weather alert when it’s obviously raining outside.


  7. Comparing Ann Arbor’s utilities to other places in Michigan sets the bar a wee bit low, don’t you think?

    I agree with galfriday — I’ve never lived anywhere else that felt the need to break into TV programming because of a “severe thunderstorm warning” — the people on the golf courses, not the people sitting in their living rooms, are the ones who need to be warned about that.


  8. I was wondering about that… I thought it was just because I decided to use the dishwasher.


  9. I grew up in AA, and I’ve never seen a boil water alert prior to this one.
    Conversely, in the year and a half I spent in Washington D.C., we were told to boil water over 10 times. Further, we were told that the very young and very old should not even drink the boiled water on these occasions…
    AA = not so bad.


  10. Yeah, but the corned beed in DC is a buck cheaper than in Ann Arbor. Why did you ever leave?


  11. Oh, E — you’re such a card!


  12. Dale, I’m just sayin’.


  13. Heh heh heh,
    well, here is a story.
    I boiled water for about ten years, during the war in Lebanon.
    some people there still do.


  14. Shit, I always boil my crappy Ass Arbor water. Drinking the water is what causes those fuckers to enlist in the Old West Side bobo army.


  15. Don’t they spell that Beau-Beaux here?


  16. I’ve never lived anywhere else that felt the need to break into TV programming because of a “severe thunderstorm warning”

    They’ve started doing that ALL THE TIME in Cleveland, where my parents live. It’s incredibly annoying, and it’s because all the local news channels are trying to outdo each other with their SuperMegaDoppler3000.