It what seems like a good omen, the world keeps giving me new ways to explain to people why they should care about infrastructure. Today, the addition is a broken Pittsburgh water main. The ~20″ main broke around noon, and sent water running down the street in such quantities that on-lookers said it looked like a river. Video of the water can be seen at a page on KDKA’s website. My favorite shot is when the stairs literally look like a waterfall. That’s a *lot* of water!

After work, I headed over to the scene to see what was going on. There were roughly six or so bystanders that looked like they weren’t there to work–there were also dozens of construction workers, supervisors, reporters, engineers, PWSA people, PEMA/Department of Homeland Security(!) and police. As you can see in the photos below, it made for a pretty “populated” intersection.

One of my favorite exchanges I witnessed was one of the bystanders telling the PWSA guys “thanks”. The guys said “they needed that”, and thanked the bystander back. Maybe another worker “thanks” project, vis-a-viz “The New York Sanitation Department Project” is in order?