The world will not blow up if you don’t call.

Earlier this afternoon, I talked with Matt Laible, city of Minneapolis spokesman, about the sign pictured above (see yesterday’s post). There’s an electric pump beneath the sidewalk that’s “dewatering” a storm sewer pipe and the adjacent soil so the pipe can be worked on later this year. (Alert reader Matty’s posted response was on the mark, except it’s a storm sewer, so presumably none of the more foul-type sewage is involved.)

If the pump goes off, the light goes on, and the city wants to know. It doesn’t have a fancy device that will call automatically, nor does it have the staff to babysit the pump, so you — pedestrian, bicyclist or driver — are asked to let ‘em know if there’s a red glow.

Nothing terrible will happen if the pump stops, Laible said — officials just prefer that it keep doing its job so the project can proceed.

So if you’re passing by on the 4th of July, please take a glance upward and do your civic duty for America’s infrastructure.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 6:14 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.