One of the biggest stories for us today started with a simple power failure due to a suicidal squirrel.
When the power went out at two pumping stations in Fort Worth early this morning, a water boil was put into effect to keep the public safe from harmful bacteria normally cleaned by the stations.
This meant 30,000 homes couldn’t just fill their glasses from the tap in Fort Worth. But it also means that 30,000 homes full of people need to boil their water before adding it to their Kool-Aid. Although your Macaroni might be safe, (you’ll boil the water before you put in the noodles, we bet) your Macaroni Grill isn’t.
That’s because the Fort Worth Health Department shut down hundreds of restaurants, grocery store delis, and bakeries since they use the cities’ water lines. What’s worse is that these businesses may be closed through Saturday afternoon.
Now the family that wanted a Friday night meal at a TGI Fridays isn’t going to get their burgers and fries, but what might be a bigger deal is that the workers — waiters, waitresses, bartenders, line cooks, and even the managers — are losing some of the best money making time of the week. Some of these folks work mainly on tips, or just for the wages earned from whatever hours they can get in at the bar and grill, so anytime that business is slow is bad for their checkbook…and anytime it’s completely shut down is worse.
Some of us are lucky; we get to complain about boiling our water for 2 minutes to keep our families safe — a legitimate, but temporary, gripe. Others have to legitimately worry if this shutdown is going to mean a whole tank of gas can’t go into the car of a server at Chili’s.
