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WIRE:01/21/2000 16:02:00 ET

About 500,000 without water in Puerto Rico's capital

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) _ At least 500,000 residents were without water Friday because of a failure the day before at a main pumping station.

If repairs continue at the current rate, only half of them would see service restored by Sunday evening, Secretary of State Angel Morey said.

The station also provides drinking water to 52 hospitals, 278 schools and 52 hotels in the teeming capital city and surrounding towns of Carolina and Trujillo Alto. Hotels and hospitals have switched to stored water, while the University of Puerto Rico has canceled classes Friday for its 67,000 students.

Islanders accustomed to storing water during the June-to-November hurricane season in case of emergency were largely caught off guard by the sudden January drought.

The government has set up tanker trucks to supply free drinking water. Makes me kind of glad my closets still full of water....

-- Carl (clilly@goentre.com), January 21, 2000

Answers

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-- Carl (clilly@goentre.com), January 21, 2000.

Got this e-mail from Nathan over at glitch central. They're trying to just post those that have links, but are getting a lot of first hand, eye-witness reports that are not making the media...

"Mr. Lilly,

Thanks for the link. Its posted. FYI we have been posting one in ten stories of pump failures in fluid transfers (reason we didnt post the huge Rio spill) but your article came in at a good time.

This is a great post.

Please do not hesitate to contact us! :)

Sincerely,

Nathan J. Bowling -- Glitch Central Team"

-- Carl (clilly@goentre.com), January 21, 2000.

My heart goes out to all those 500,000 and, what's to stop something such as this from happening here?

The only way anyone will get my preps (food, water, gasoline, etc.,) is by prying them out of my dead white fingers. Is this the Fat Lady starting to humm? She hasn't sung yet.

-- Richard (Astral-Acres@webtv.net), January 21, 2000.

Could it be that the BUFFER OVERFLOW problems are beginning to kick in???????

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), January 21, 2000.

Remember it could be a town here a town there but we didn't know whose town it was going to hit Maybe it's starting to hit. May be our town next but we don't know who are is........Dizzy

-- dizzy (been@there.com), January 21, 2000.