White said two downtown buildings flooded
by the torrent will remain closed pending
further safety checks. He said repairs to
the pipe, which was made in 1913, could take
five days.

Tampa Bay Online

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), January 13, 2000

Answers

water main break = y2k problem?

give it up

-- (nowIve@seen.everything), January 13, 2000.

Line pressure increases can blow the
weaker pipes. This is controlled by
computers.

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), January 13, 2000.

Thank you spider...I saw this story last night, but I wondered how it could be computer related. =)

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), January 13, 2000.

This may or may not be a Y2K situation.

Consider: the main pipe was installed in 1913 Cleveland has miles of crumbling pipes

However: the temperature was 42 degrees F (pipes generally break at much lower temps) pressure, flow, etc are controlled by computer chips.

Maybe a combination of a computer glitch, with the resulting error taking down an old pipe? Sounds good to me.

-- (Ladybuckeye_59@yahoo.com), January 13, 2000.

pipes don't "generally" break at lower temperatures. They tend to break during times when the temperature changes quickly and/or frequently.

You're really stretching it to say this is at all Y2K related.

-- (get@clue.now), January 13, 2000.

I seriously doubt this was induced in any way by a Y2K glitch. The pipe in question is iron and is 87 years old. It probably just corroded away until it ruptured.

It happened during Y2K, so in an abstract sort of way it's a Y2K problem, but probably not computer related.

-- Powder (Powder47keg@aol.com), January 13, 2000.

There's more information and comments on an earlier thread:

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002IqX

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 13, 2000.