Earlier today, we cleared the pipe from my house to the city cutoff valve.

The city of Melrose has to maintain the water pipe from the cutoff valve to the water main, which runs under the street. When this freezes, they can run electric from my cutoff valve to a neighbor's cutoff valve, through the water main line. The main water line runs under the street.

The located the cutoff for the neighbor, made it accessible, and put a rod into it, attached a clamp, and hooked up one end of the electric. They put another rod in my cutoff valve, and attached a vice grips to it. You can see the welding marks on the rod from where the 200 amps enters the rod. They attach the electric prod to the vice grips.

Then they turned on the truck, and we waited...

The cables carrying the electricity got hot, so they covered them in snow to keep their equipment from melting.

And we waited. And waited. Kept checking inside the house, waiting for running water,...

We talked about pipes and water. I think I learned more that day about underground plumbing than I had in a while.

Hours later, it worked! Water is Flowing!

I had to let things run for quite a while...

Unfortunately this is not the end of the story. That evening I first noticed the water springing up from under the road in front of the house, right where the city line from the cutoff valve hits the water main. Paul came out on Friday morning, and put up the barriers and warnings. There was a drain within a few yards of the leaking pipe, and the water came up, and drained out. I filled up some water jugs in case the water was turned off for a couple of days.

Also on Thursday evening, I got my Canon Digital Rebel. Outstanding camera. And a very nice strobe!

Friday's major storm came in on schedule, and the city of Melrose will deal with this on Monday.

(Complete pictures of City to Water Main)

( Pictures of Spring in Street )