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Post by mirabelleswalker on Jul 24, 2015 6:43:27 GMT
I work in healthcare. No way would my manager let us go home for that.
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Post by freecharlie on Jul 24, 2015 6:50:58 GMT
In the nearest city to my small town, there was a water main break this past February that drained the municipal supply. The entire city (population just over 8,000, plus 1,500 university students) was without water for a week. Trucks brought in water to the hospitals and nursing homes, but all of the flushing still had to be done with buckets. Staff had to go outside, where port-a-johns were set up for them. Bottled water was brought in from neighboring areas, port-a-johns were set up at businesses, and the Red Cross set up shelters for people who had hot water heating systems (temperatures were below zero that week). Just think...a whole week without being able to wash dishes, do laundry, take a shower... Bradford Water EmergencyWe had that happen here too. They had portapotties for the schools and for neighborhood use. The treatment plant was compromised by a massive flood, so nothing could go down a drain. link |
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Post by katlaw on Jul 24, 2015 7:04:06 GMT
This happened at my work recently. We are a government service with no option to close the office. They brought porta potties in and set them up in the parking lot immediately. They then brought in a water truck we could get fresh water from.
And later in the day they arranged access to the building next door for us to be able to use their facilities.
If not we would have been forced to evacuate to a secondary site.
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Post by mikklynn on Jul 24, 2015 13:02:04 GMT
We had this happen last summer in our office building. We would have had to use PTO to leave. They handed out bottled water and instructed us to leave to use the restroom.
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Post by utmr on Jul 24, 2015 13:02:53 GMT
Several years ago our building had some sort of mechanical problem that caused the water to be shut off (not due to the water dept or weather). The fire dept shut us down. With no running water it was a fire hazard as well as a health issue.
Critical activities shifted to the backup sites and everyone else went home. It started about 10 and management sent everyone to lunch at 10:30 while they figured out what was going on. They told us to come back at 1 and by then they had things figured out and sent us home. I thought they handled it well.
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Post by Meri-Lyn on Jul 24, 2015 13:26:35 GMT
We had that happen a few times when they were doing renovations. The construction crew cut the water main. We went across the parking lot to the building next door to use their restrooms. Most all of us have remote access now, so I think if it were more than a few hours, we would just go and work from home.
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Post by originalvanillabean on Jul 24, 2015 13:30:00 GMT
I don't use the restroom that often during the day so it wouldn't have been a bother for me. This is me too. However, if I had to go and they told me not to flush, I wouldn't be happy about that. It's gross. |
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oldcrow
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,828 
Location: Ontario,Canada
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Post by oldcrow on Jul 24, 2015 15:05:49 GMT
Last winter a water main that delivers the water to the facility that I work in broke. The town responded immediately but it still took several hours to repair. During that time the only water available was bottled water.
None of the workers even considered leaving due to lack of water. No one who works in a nursing home would think of leaving all those residents unattended.
So I guess it depends on your situation.
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Post by crimsoncat05 on Jul 24, 2015 15:24:25 GMT
also a good point made about the fire safety aspect of things since the sprinkler system wouldn't work without water to the building.
I'm sure there are reasons why people would have to stay, but it sounds like at least most of those employers did make accommodations for the employees. That's better than saying 'just don't flush.'
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Post by not2peased on Jul 24, 2015 15:31:46 GMT
that has happened here a couple times-they let people who want to work from home to leave. I go to the bathroom a minimum of 8 times a day-I couldn't physically go longer than 2 hours without a bathroom and running down the street that often isn't really an option
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smartypants71
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,708
Location: Houston, TX
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Post by smartypants71 on Jul 24, 2015 15:40:54 GMT
This happened a few times at my past employer. HSE got involved and we were sent home. We all had the ability to work remotely.
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Post by annabella on Jul 24, 2015 16:34:05 GMT
That happens once at my old job and they immediately closed the office. It happened once at this job and we just held tight until they fixed the water that day. But we got an email saying we could go home if need be.
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Dani-Mani
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,706
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Post by Dani-Mani on Jul 24, 2015 16:42:21 GMT
Like those who work in healthcare, I work in education and we have closed school before due to no water.
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Post by Fidget on Jul 24, 2015 17:11:10 GMT
That happened where I work a couple times, they brought in cases of bottled water for us to drink and security shuttled us to another company owned location (less than 2 miles) for bathroom use. It was fine. Anyone who wanted to leave and use their PTO time was allowed (very few did). The shuttle runs were actually kind of fun, we were chatting and a few people started singing, kind of like we were back in school on a field trip  |
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Post by Spongemom Scrappants on Jul 24, 2015 17:22:20 GMT
It happened at my workplace about a year ago due to plumbing issues. We are located next door to a fast food restaurant so it wasn't really an issue. But I can certainly imagine situations where it would create quite a hardship for employees (and possibly customers/visitors). There's no one-size-fits-all rule for this scenario. Each workplace would have to figure their own appropriate response to it based on all the factors involved.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
May 14, 2024 16:26:37 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2015 17:48:00 GMT
My husband shuts his company down when they lose utilities. They have about 50 employees. Any power outages or no water, and the employees are sent home. They are still paid for the day. If it was going to extend longer than a day, they'd arrange for potable water and porta-potties.
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Post by AnastasiaBeaverhausn on Jul 24, 2015 18:14:34 GMT
I worked at a middle school that lost water. The district brought in water coolers for the kids to get water to drink and told us to send them across the field to the elementary school for the bathroom. Teachers too for that matter. Well, we get 5 minutes between classes and can't make it there and back in that time. Not to mention the kids being unwatched to the elementary and back. We had several pregnant teachers as well. Such a pain.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
May 14, 2024 16:26:37 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2015 20:00:15 GMT
We had this happen is our last building. We closed the business for the day, and everyone was paid as if we were open. It's a private business. I think the government office should have been closed, too; the mayor and/or administrator should have jumped through the necessary hoops.
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Post by Zee on Jul 24, 2015 20:50:07 GMT
Happened at the hospital once, water main break. What a nightmare that could have been, but obviously we were the city's priority and it was only a few hours. No one got to leave. Hand sanitizer, unflushed toilets, bottled water for drinking. Probably HR and management got to go home, but not us nurses! |
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Post by sillyrabbit on Jul 24, 2015 22:19:16 GMT
We were without water at my job one day. It turned out to just be for a few hours, but I told my boss that I would have to leave whenever I needed to go (I have medical issues that make me urinate very frequently especially in the morning), or I could go home and come back when the water was back on. She was very sympathetic and agreed that I could leave whenever I needed to. Fortunately, the water issue was just in our building. Had the whole town had a water problem, and I couldn't get to bathroom facilities rather quickly then I would have had to go home.
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Post by corinne11 on Jul 25, 2015 2:48:20 GMT
A few years ago we arrived at school to find ourselves without water. What a nightmare! Children were just arriving at school so teachers put notes up and we were all standing out at entrances telling parents to take their children home and then we started ringing parents for the children who were already at school.
Of course, we then discovered that legally we had to KNOW if every student got home safely so we had to ring nearly every parent to check. With only 2 land lines, most teachers started using mobiles.
And yes, people rang the union to check on Occupational health and safety. We had a school less than a kilometre away from us who let us use their toilets and we were all provided with bottled water from the canteen. Technically we COULD have been sent to another school to help out but they said it was extremely unlikely this would ever happen.
In the end we were all allowed to go home by 1:30 with leadership and a few relief teachers left to look after the handful of children whose parents were not able to be contacted.
We often have short term water shortages, usually an hour or so, but we usually get a warning so everyone runs to the toilet quickly! Corinne |
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