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Can You Find Your Hydrants After a Heavy Snowfall?
Winter is coming sooner than we think. In years past we've had areas where, after a heavy snowfall, the fire hydrants disappear due to ignorant civilians plowing out their driveways and covering them up. In addition to an awareness campaign trying to educate homeowners about the dangers of not keeping the hydrants near their homes unburied, my town has installed steel rods with little flags on top that attach to one of the caps on the hydrant. They easily flex out of the way when opening or closing the hydrant.
Several ajoining towns have done similar things to ensure their hydrants are able to be located after heavy snowfall. I was wondering what other F.D's are doing about this.
Several ajoining towns have done similar things to ensure their hydrants are able to be located after heavy snowfall. I was wondering what other F.D's are doing about this.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Brian Dumser on
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We've put small articles in the local paper reminding residents to take care not to bury fire hydrants near their homes, but I like your "adopt-a-hydrant" idea. Incidently our PW dept. also clears out buried hydrants and actually took out one with an end loader last year. One of our guys also works for PW. Nice to have the connections...LOL
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Permalink Reply by Keisha Broach on
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Yeah, ours are usually buried by, umm, public works LOL.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on
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Well, this time next year, I'll let you know. This winter will be our first EVER for our newly installed hydrant system. We will have to get used to calling work details to shovel hydrants, and set up a regular patrol to make sure they are all clear.
Marking will be with a 4 or 6 foot pole, or spring-loaded whip with flag attached. We're not sure yet.
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Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on
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Heated Rebar will bend easily around a pipe. When you close the loop it's done. Take a piece of flat steel and attach it to the top. Paint the flag a high visibility color. When you remove the cap, the rebar snow-flag comes off with 0 problems.
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Permalink Reply by rfdjumper on
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I just look for the cop car and bam..... There's the hydrant! Just kidding of course. Hydrants are at the end of the block and usually 1 in the middle of the block.
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Permalink Reply by LT Lake on
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We are a rural department and all our hydrants are dry hydrants so we dont have to worry about turning them on or off. To mark the hydrant we have a 4 inch pipe 5 feet tall each side of the hydrant and painted bright red. Most of the time the hydrants are kept clear by the road crews or department members but if they are not cleared every truck has a shovel on it. takes a little longer to get water flowing but it works.
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Permalink Reply by Andy Entwistle on
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We have rods like most of the others but in our area hydrants are also hidden by brush alongside the road - our neighboring dept. uses a painting of a hydrant with an arrow painted right in the travel lane of the road that you'd be using from the station. And it works for snow too, once the road is plowed. Our dry hydrants (we mostly draft) are usually not near any 'homeowner', so there will be a page for a work party and we'll go shovel out the ones not already done.
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Permalink Reply by Jason Brooks on
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We had those poles with the reflectors on them in the vollie area, the damn kids liked to wrap them around the hydrants. We got them back in all sorts of wild configurations. The full time city has a no parking sign within an arms reach of every hydrant. Now, when we flush them, we always see them and the signs. I think they go underground when it snows. We have had to go out to dig them out in the past. Even though we can see the signs, damned if there are not some hydrants that we can'd find. Even if the guy who actually flushed that particular hydrant is there, sometimes they are just plain old buried and we can't find them.
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Permalink Reply by anne potter on
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The town that I live in they snow blow out the hydrants,but I also live in a small town.. I know moew than 6 inches and they get snow blowed...
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Permalink Reply by Patrick Twohig on
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never seen a snow storm over 6 inches here
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Just thought I'd bring this back. We just had more snow a few days ago and already I see hydrants in danger of disappearing! Stay safe!
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Permalink Reply by Kevin Burks on
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if we had snow down here in texas that amounted to anything we might have a problem with finding them. The problem here is that when you open a hydrant , you can only open them about half way due to the lack of volume that comes out of them. the next thing ya know if you have sucked a 10 yr old off of the toilet and into your engine.LOL
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