LEOMINSTER-- A large log nearly caused a catastrophe in the city Friday when it punctured a dam at the Notown Reservoir, the city's largest source of drinking water and the highest point in the water system.So let me see if I get this straight...a log falls off a truck, rolls into the reservoir, and flows to the dam where it pokes a hole in the side? That's all it might take to drain the town's drinking supply and flood the downtown, devastating a city of 40,000 and injuring or killing countless residents? And this nearly happened this weekend?
"I must have said several hundred 'Our Father's' during the day," said Patrick LaPointe, director of the city's Department of Public Works, who feared that the puncture would lead to a general rupture of the dam, releasing millions of gallons downhill toward downtown Leominster....
However, about noon, DPW worker Rick Cormier looked up and noticed a rush of water, about 3 to 4 inches higher than normal, heading toward the spillway.
" 'What the heck?' I think that's what his initial reaction to this was," said Mr. LaPointe. "There really was no reason for the water coming at them, but it was."
The workers discovered that a large log -- shaped like a telephone pole -- had butted up against a dam upstream at Notown, poking open a hole and sending the water downstream.
Downstream meant toward the city's downtown....
As for the log that caused the problem to begin with, "We would like to get it out of the reservoir to see what it is, exactly," Mr. LaPointe said. "We have no idea how it got there." There is speculation that it might have fallen off a truck on nearby Route 2.
Think about that closely. Think about how slowly water "flows" through a reservoir. Yet that is enough force to thrust a log through the dam? Wow.
I guess I owe an apology to that lady who suggested that "We could have a tsunami" earlier this summer.
The map I've created shows the approximate path of the deluge city officials feared.
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