What's funny is I can't ever remember seeing a traffic light fall to the ground. I've seen massive trees fall before the traffic lights. Talk about resilient. However, I understand that its happened before, like when there is a tornado etc..
Here in Ohio, I've seen light poles brought down during an ice storm or two, or the occasional tornado, but I don't think I've ever seen hanging lights down
I've seen one that was being broken by a tropical storm. It shook all over the place and fell flying to the ground behind my car as I had just cleared the intersection
You need water towers to provide water pressure. Otherwise each house would have to have several pumps. With water towers, gravity supplies the water pressure since water tends to seek its own height.
Water simply flows downward, if it has a route, just like sand or any fluid. Pumping the water into a raised container works because the pressure is the same throughout the system because liquids, especially water, are largely not compressible. So having a tank at 50' up gives you the same pressure from miles away as you would have if your house was directly under the tower. Well, the same water pressure - the emotional pressure of living under a tank like that would be a major issue. It should be noted that water towers are not used where there are enough hills available to locate the tanks on. Then the hills' height substitutes for the tower and is much more protected from wind, debris, freezing etc. This type is usually much larger than those on towers as it is easier to put a big tank on a hill and it is convenient to have all that water pumped in and ready to go.
Pump up into the tower once versus pumping water all the time to make pressure. It's also all treated for drinking and consolidated so it is easier to test. 👽🗿👽🗿👽
And the water towers may be somewhat large in cases, because they're also expected to act as a reservoir lasting more than a day in the event of an extended power failure. Thus if a storm takes the electricity out, the city water will still work just fine.
As a retired Firefighter/Paramedic I can tell you that SOME American NEIGHBORHOODS have hydrants that are no more than 500’ apart, and that hydrants are painted by how much water they can supply. They are yearly inspected by Fire Departments, by how much water they can put out (measured by an accurate Fire Department hydrometer), and that they are clear of debris. Water towers ARE that big, and as part of our incoming physicals, we actually rappelled down from one…. 👍
I am also a former firefighter and the information you gave about the hydrants are accurate in your area, but vary around the country. It is one of my personal biggest gripes that it is not standardized around the country. In my arena, they are usually spaced closer to 1000 feet apart, and only closer to the 500 feet in the denser urban areas. Also, the color coding of hydrants are not consistent between municipalities and some water districts do not use any code. In my area, the size / volume of a water tower is calculated to hold the three day average for the area it supplies water to.
@@johnhenkel1828 Thank you for the great information, brother! I live in North Georgia (in the mountains) and figured if it was that way for us, everyone should have something similar. It’s also great to know that I’m not the only FF who watches this channel. 👍
There is a lot of lore about shoes on power lines, I don’t think there's only one reason. In addition to other things already mentioned in the comments, I've also read that some people do it to memorialize someone who has passed away.
@@thephilosophicalagnostic2177 probably depends the area, Dallas county you'll see it here and there, but we're south west in Texas, so probably done everywhere, just some places and communities it's just infrequent enough to not be seen or if small town, prob not a thing in small towns.
@@thephilosophicalagnostic2177 I'm in a suburb of Minneapolis, MN and I see it a lot here. Now I'm curious if there's more info available about where this tends to happen.
Yes, Andre, our Water Towers are that big and even bigger. Holding water up at a higher elevation than the surrounding area creates more water pressure due to the potential energy that water holds. I watch a lot of pressure washing videos on UA-cam, and I constantly hear from UK pressure washers that they have low water pressure in a lot of areas. I can tell you right now that that is in part due to lack of water towers. In my small town of 9000 people, we have 2 water towers on opposite sides of town. One of them has our Town Name and High School mascot name on it. And the 2nd one, which was built just within the past 20 years or so is near me, as a matter of fact. I can't recall if it's got any wording on it or not. Those towers that were labeled Salem Quakers is like the same style that our new one was built like. Oh, I should add that when my father was still working back in the early 90s, in the USDA (agriculture) , his last position was getting city water and sewer systems into the more rural areas. One of the things that went along with that was getting water towers built. When we'd drive around the area, he'd always point out which towers he helped get built.
I used to work for a water treatment plant. We were also responsible for the upkeep on the property surrounding the water towers. Most times there are random "pump stations" that just look like a time brick building just randomly somewhere around town. These pump stations help with the pressure and flow supplying the water across towns. Even small rural town will often times have multiple water towers. From my experience working for the City Water Department these huge towers supply water to a set or designated area. they volume of water is generally 2 maybe 3 days of water if the plant were to stop running. The water inside is or has been treated but is also still monitored. There are huge chemistry labs with massive computer monitor systems constantly evaluating the water levels, chemical levels etc. If level readings are off adjustments can be made to the water being treated at that very moment being piped into the tower to replace what is currently being used. The bad thing to this scenario is any adjustments made at the plant end will take 48 to 72 hrs to reach the Tower and offset the current readings. So when a city issues a boil ban on the city water for instance. You were already drinking, showering, cooking, brushing your teeth with contaminated water for most likely 2 days before you were made aware. So honestly contaminated water can often be the cause of the "flu like" or "stomach Bug" symptoms going around in any given area. If you will notice often times (I now work in an Emergency Room and we see this more than people would be comfortable to know) out breaks of vomiting, fevers, stomach issues etc will be from people in a certain area and the common thing they all have is water. Since all towers service a set area only usually you can tie things back to they live in the same general area or they work, attend school, daycare, church etc in the same area. Its crazy how little the general public knows about the water system, how much varies from city to city but it is terrifying how easily these towers can be gotten into and contaminated.
Where I grew up, the shoes dangling on the lines were supposed to be in memory of those who died in some sort of street violence, not necessarily gang involved, but many were.
You paint the name of the town on the water tower because before GPS, pilots who would dust crops with pesticides would use the water towers to navigate.
A certain amount of small-town one-upmanship may be part of it, too. Like when two neighboring towns' high school sports teams are perennial rivals, so first one town and then the other repaints their tower in their respective teams' colors.
4:55 Fun Fact: the movie What’s Eating Gilbert Grape that Lawrence is referencing here was filmed mostly in Manor, TX and some other surrounding small towns, just outside of Austin. The scene shown here was shot on our town’s old water tower. It’s retired from service now but still serves as a “monument” for the town. This scene in particular includes me and two of my friends as extras on the ground. The blue building and tires are part of the local tire shop owned by a family friend, whose son I went to school with.
I believe that's national actually. Specifically, it's the color the cap is painted. I'm a mystery writer and I used that as a clue in my first book. 😊
@@lorettaross5146 no unfortunately there is no mandate on the colors nationwide. I am a former firefighter and just in our mutual aid response area, there are four different paint codes that I had to be familiar with as I was primarily a pump operator/ engineer on my truck.
Sometimes we have three or more lanes of traffic going each direction. Large vehicles can block the view of traffic lights on poles for drivers of smaller vehicles. Hang the lights in the middle and they are more easily seen by drivers in all lanes and all sizes of vehicles.
I have sandblasted and painted the outside and inside of water towers. The inside has a chemical liner sprayed inside of them and the outside of them have a two part epoxy paint. The old school towers before the invention of spray on chemical liner the inside of the tower was coated with a food safe grease to prevent them from rusting. The biggest tank that I have worked on was a 3 million gallon tank next to the airport in Jackson Tennessee
I've never seen shoes dangling from power lines, but then, I live in rural Northern Minnesota. We use those inflated dome-style buildings for sports fields, horse arenas, all kinds of spaces that you'd like to have covered because of weather. Those big (wooden?) domes are usually on county or city land to store salt and sand for the road crews in winter. It really needs to be kept dry.
We have a lot of things to do indoors designed for our Minnesota winters. We have the longest connected skyway system, I believe. I know I use to cut off 6 blocks walking in the cold, by walking in the skyway in downtown St Paul Minnesota
There is usually an indication on the road itself as to the location of fire hydrants. Where I live, there are reflectors running down the dividing line. Anytime you see a blue one, there is a hydrant beside the road. Many years ago our county did a fundraiser and gave a prize for the best paint job on a fire hydrant. My friend, a dalmation breeder, won by painting his to look like a dalmatian with a fire hat. Fun.
@@cp368productions2 Thanks for letting me know! Maybe it's just for rural counties like mine that have way fewer streetlights? We actually had to have a streetlight installed at our driveway and we pay a separate monthly bill. It isn't provided. But hey, that's what makes these so much fun, tbh; learning stuff about the world outside! Take care and thanks again for the correction!
Up north, it's common for for hydrants to have a colorful pole, several feet tall, mounted on or next to them. That way, they're easy to find when they get buried by snow plows after a storm.
6:05 water runs downhill. Water towers are there to have water above the other buildings, so that you can generate pressure to feed all the buildings with the water In America you do not need a water pump if you have City water, because gravity brings it to you. You only need a water pump if you have a well to bring it out of the ground
I grew up in SoCal and remember the occasional pair of shoes, mostly tennis shoes, hanging over phone lines. Mostly tossed over them by local teens for any number of reasons, boredom, if not alcohol, seems to have been involved. I'm just 74 so far.
There is an American comic strip, Wallace the Brave, which features a young boy who lives in costal town in Rhode Island. There is a running joke that every year after school closes he throws his shoes in the ocean. Also "The shoe must go on" back in the 1950's to the 1970's there was a popular TV variety show, The Ed Sullivan Show, and people would often joke about the way he would pronounce words, like pronouncing "show" so it would sound like "shoe".
I grew up in a smaller city north of Boston, MA, back in the 1970's. Sneakers dangling from telephone wires was just a thing you'd see. The city had no gang problem that I ever learned of, so I don't think it was gang related. Honestly, it was probably just people bored and getting rid of an old pair of shoes more than anything else. Streetlights hanging from wires always struck me as weird, too. In sufficient stormy weather, they *can* come down. On the other hand, it may be a cost-effective decision where it's relative cheap to put them back up, and it's just not worth the money to try to make something indestructible. Especially in tornado alley, etc.
Same here. In a small northern Massachusetts city on the NH border growing up in the 80s and 90s and the city (town back then) had no gang problem at all. Yet I saw sneakers dangling from wires all of the time! I just assumed it was a copycat effect coupled with excessive alcohol.
Yes, water towers that big are everywhere. My university had it's own water tower. They're so common, I forget they're there. They usually have the name of the town painted on it (or my school, in my case).
There is a water tower in Gaffney, South Carolina, right next to Interstate 85 that looks like a huge peach, leaves and all. It is something we always looked for when making the regular 500 mile trip between Georgia and Virginia. It's pretty neat looking.
Every city paints fire hydrants differently for some reason. It’s their choice I guess. They are also changed out once in a while for the latest version.
I live in Georgia. Here, we have a county called...Butts. Their water tower says, "Beautiful Butts county." I couldn't help but laugh at the cleverness of it. Traffic lights: I have never seen them fall. The lines may go down an the lights go out, but the lights never fall. I grew up saying, lights, traffic lights, red lights, stop lights, etc. What ever you choose to call them is right. The hydrants were a source of many childhood memories for us. They can be red, silver, yellow, etc. I remember someone (We never saw them) would come and open up the hydrant and the water would just flow. All of the children would have a ball playing in that water. Also, NEVER park in front of one.
We have a few vertical poles for traffic lights on a street near where I live, and honestly, it's a heck of a lot easier to see the traffic lights when they're positioned horizontally, above each lane. The number of times I've nearly gone through the intersection with the vertical pole lights because I didn't see them is scary. There's a horizontal light just a small ways beyond.
In my area we have the salt sheds that are usually large metal structures where salt/sand is stored for the occasional ice/snow event. Water towers are common in my area & are used for storage & water pressure. There is a water reservoir (lake) near my home & the water treatment plant & a huge storage tank on the site. I have a fire hydrant in my yard which I have to mow around.
Quibbletown: this must be a real town, but a "quibble" is a little dispute. Water towers: to increase the water pressure when it goes down, and to store water. In my city water reservoirs are underground with a park on top. Shoes on wires: to show that drugs are available here, which gang dominates the block, or that somebody can reach impossible places. "The shoe must go on": a pun on "The show must go on", and putting on shoes. "Strip mall": they're a "strip" or horizontal row of one-story shops.
In a lot of areas of the country it snows so a marker might not be visible in the street. As it is residents who have a hydrant in their yard are suppose to clear the snow around them. If they were flush to the ground it would be harder to find or use.
over winter months we have hydrants attached with a 4' pole (hydrant markers) and now they are also wrapped in plastic to protect from road de-icing salt
Not just an issue finding it. But imagine having a plowed snowbank covering it the winter. Hydrants are supposed to be kept clear for the most part, but it would be worse if it was under a cover where a responding crew had to hammer all the ice off first in order to get at it.
Salt used in winter to melt snow has to be stored dry so that it doesn't solidify into bigger pieces that will not fit through the truck spreaders used.
9:10 That used to be a very common traffic signal installation in Michigan. The signals would be hung on a diagonal span wire across the intersection. This particular example has two signals for the through (and right turn) direction, and one for the left turn (marked with a backlit "LEFT" box over it). The signal has the following cycle: green ball + flashing red ball for the left turn - you can turn left when opposing traffic is clear; yellow ball + flashing left turn red; red ball + green, then yellow arrow for the left turn to clear out the left turn lane. Then a solid red ball for all movements in that direction, allowing for right turn on red if no prohibitory sign exists. 9:44 Those signals, on the monopole, are common in Illinois, where Lawrence currently lives. There, the protected/permitted lefts are controlled by the five-light towers with the green and yellow arrows on the bottom.
4:48 OK so about water towers. The water has to be pumped from lower elevation to higher elevation. At night not many people need water but during the afternoons and other times there could be very high demand, which can far exceed the ability of the pumps to move water. Additionally pumps require power to operate. Instead of constantly pumping water on-demand to all the houses, the pumps fill up one giant water tower constantly over time, and gravity is used to allow the water to flow into the pipes and into homes. This is why they are built very high in the air. This is also why your water still works even if the power is off. The fact it is a giant container means the levels can rise during the low usage hours and fall during peak usage, but there is always an available supply of water available regardless.
Since you liked the hydrants, I have a bit of trivia for you. Outside the large cities and in the north, there are volunteer groups, along with the local firefighters that go around after a snow and dig out the hydrants. The ones I know that organize the hydrant shovel outs are the Boy Scouts, the VFW. This happens on hydrants that are remote or aren't on or near private property, because if the hydrant is on your property shoveling it out is your responsibility and you can be fined for not doing it.
When you pour grain, sand, salt, etc it forms a pile that resembles a pyramid in some ways. The "salt domes" can be filled from the top via a sort of angled conveyor belt. It spills down into the building and forms a pile that looks a bit like the building (or rather, the building resembles the pile. A truck fills by backing in, and there are chutes or hoppers that let the pile slide directly into the truck. As the pile shrinks, a bulldozer can drive around inside and fill the chutes or you can just open the top (in good weather) and fill the whole building again. It's very practical, very few moving parts. (edit: very much like using a dry food dispenser to fill a bag of coffee at the grocery store, but bigger and with salt)
Fire Hydrants actually have their valves located below ground level - to protect the fire mains from freezing - so they are shallower in warmer climates, and deeper in cold climates. The specially shaped fitting on the top is what turns the valve open or shut.
Those domes house road salt for highways. they are everywhere in the northern midwest. They are placed at various points along Interstates and usually have the DOT (Dept of Transportation) snowplows/salt trucks parked next to them.
Atlanta Georgia doesn't get snow often. Maybe once a year. But we aren't good about clearing the roads - probably because it happens so infrequently. But when we do, all heck breaks loose. Within the past 10 years or so, I've noticed that there are salt/brine/gravel places along the interstates. Better to have an not need, than need and not have.
When I left Georgia in 2006, it snowed on the very day. It was amazing how much they collapsed over just a bit of snow. No one seemed to know how to drive in it.. that’s actually the scariest thing seeing multiple people fishing tailing in front of you at the same time. I believe at the time much of the people that would plow were independent contractors.
I was living in Minneapolis in 1991, when a big blizzard struck on Halloween. The Metrodome sports stadium's inflatable roof had to be hosed with high-pressure hot water to avert its collapse under the sudden load of 20 inches of snow.
In the US Military, it is somewhat common for someone who is within a month of completing their term of service to take one of their pairs of boots and sling it up onto a phone wire like that, the implication being "I'm not going to need these boots any more, I'm OUT OF HERE!"
4:43 - As a European, you're probably familiar with the Roman aqueduct system. They used tall trestles to bring water from mountain streams to fountains in the cities. The brilliant thing about their design is that since the water source was at a higher elevation than the destination, gravity provided the water pressure without the need for pumps. The same principle is behind the functioning of water towers (although pumps ARE necessary for filling them). A single tower provides, depending on capacity, enough high-pressure water for several neighborhoods at a minimum electrical cost. We get extra help in my home town because our two major water towers are on top of a tall mountain ridge. 8:50 - This is a simple thing. In 'old world' cities where the building layouts are centuries old and the roads were designed so just a pair of horse-drawn carts could pass, most of the roads are two-lane affairs and one traffic signal is enough for each side. In the US, though, where roads can have 4, 6, or even 8 lanes of traffic, you need more lights to make sure everyone knows whether they can advance safely or not. A pole stretching across the road can only support so many lights before it collapses, so many intersections have the traffic lights suspended from cables that are anchored at both sides. And no, they don't bang against each other in the wind because a) they're usually far enough apart to prevent that, and b) they would all be swinging in the direction of the wind anyway. 10:13 - As a bonus, here's a clip from a late 80's cartoon show satirizing the concept of Mini Malls: ua-cam.com/video/J5RuxqtOICA/v-deo.html 11:09 - I've lived in America for 90% of my life (barring a stint in Austria during my early childhood) and even I was confused by these things. 12:18 - These topics must be kismet, because here's another segment from the same cartoon making a brief joke about fire hydrants: ua-cam.com/video/Gaf4miodCiQ/v-deo.html As an additional note, a water tower in America has a capacity between 250,000 and 1.8 million gallons of water depending on the size of the community. The average American household uses 80-100 gallons of water per day.
The square/cube law also plays a role in water tower sizing. For a roughly spherical shape, the volume increases as the cube of the radius, but the surface area increases as the square of the radius. The water is in the volume, but the steel is in the area. Less steel is required per unit volume with larger containers.
Water towers are popular in flat areas, like valleys and the midwest. Areas that have hills usually put massive water tanks on the top of hills, acting for water pressure but also as water storage to ensure there is at least some water in case of emergency! My college town is downstream of a reservoir, so we might get some water pressure from treating water from that higher elevation, but I haven’t looked into it. It is city water so they might just pressurize it at the treatment plant!
We have all manner of designs for water towers in the USA. They usually try to make them interesting, or at least not ugly, since they're so visible. A lot of small towns have the town name on the water tower. In places with hills, they'll often build a large water tank on top of the hill, instead of a water tower. The one in my area is painted green and surrounded by trees, so you can't see it unless you know it's there. The purpose of a water tower/elevated reservoir is to provide all houses with water using gravity. Pumps are used to fill the water tower/reservoir, but not electricity is needed after that. None of our houses have a pump for city water. If there is a power outage, the water continues to work until the water tower/reservoir runs out. They try to size them to last at least two weeks without power. I've heard that some places require each house to have a pump to use city water, and then if the power goes out, they can't run the pump, and therefore they lose water too.
Anyone else notice she is not using a “head rest” on her seat? It’s not a “head rest” but is there to prevent whiplash and neck injury in accidents, even minor ones. This kinda shocked me like seeing someone removing the seatbelt. “Let’s keep your body in place but your head & neck, ‘forget about it’”. Absolutely scared for her safety. Adjust the seat & head rest just keep it in place some what behind your head plz and thank you.
11:45 Yes, we are all aware of these. However, we don't have any salt shelters in Florida, but I did live up north for the first half of my life and we needed it constantly during the winter for snow.
Large multi-lane roads may require different signals for each lane, and you also can't count on seeing a traffic light that's three lanes over to your right mounted on a pole at the corner. Those lights are much bigger than you think - most people are shocked when they see one up close - and they are very heavy, so it takes an awfully strong wind to push one. Traffic light, stop light, and even red light, but I've never heard "stop and go light".
The traffic lights on wires are actually extremely strong. I've seen a fallen tree leaning on one once and it was holding the tree up without a problem. I'm sure not having the metal pole saves money, but also in places where it gets really windy, the ability to sway probably makes it better able to handle the wind.
The only time I've been traffic lights come down is when places that usually don't get hurricane-force winds got a hurricane-force wind unexpectedly. In areas that get hurricanes, the traffic lights are either better reinforced, or are taken down in advance of the storm.
Water towers hold the water for the whole town, and are being constantly refilled - from the water treatment plant, so the water is safe & drinkable. The height is to provide gravity pressure, thrust the pipes to the faucet. Most have the town name printed on them, for civic pride. Salt domes are found in any state that has snow in the winter, the size & number getting bigger the further north you go. Traffic lights is the most common name.
9:30 it's done this way because it is both fast and cheap. The low voltage electric grid is put together with spit and rubber bands. There're multiple reasons for this, our utility companies are for profit and operate a 'tight ship'. The weather or traffic accidents will eventually destroy any type of light and it will need to be replaced immediately. Mounting every last light on a pole or solid structure would use up unbelievable amounts of raw materials.
I'm going to be pedantic. The hydrant is actually below ground, what you see is just the top cover that has threaded ports and supports the valve stem. The valve is at the same depth, under ground, as the water main. They are spaced apart based on local laws, but I used to have to put them every 400ft so the emergency responders wouldn't have to work too hard to find water. We also put them at the ends of lines and the tops of hills so you can bleed air out of the pipes
Fire hydrants can be one of several colors in body and top, but at the very least, each will have a distinct color on their tops for three reasons. 1)the top color indicates the amount of water available at that hydrant which is measured in gallons per minute (GPM). 2)A black top (or whatever local color is adopted) will tell you a hydrant is inactive 3) even though the majority of hydrants must contain drinkable water, some are hooked up to sources that are not drinkable, so the color may also indicate this as well.
To elaborate on what a couple of others have said, water towers are generally used to provide water pressure to a wide area, an entire town or section of a city with city-provided water service. Smaller ones exist or used to exist on older tall buildings in cities to provide even pressure to the whole thing, but modern water systems have largely done away with this type. Either way, the idea is the same; pump a large amount of water up into the tower for storage, and then gravity provides the pressure for the whole area. It also acts as a sort of buffer for the water system, so that if a whole bunch of people are using water faster than the pump can fill the tower, everyone will still have pressure! They will also continue to provide pressure in the case of a power outage until they run out.
3:49 The only experience I have with shoes on phone/power lines like that was bullying. The bullies steal the shoes of their target and throw them up for a "laugh" (their own not the victim's).
That design of water tower is TINY compared to some other designs. We have enormous ones in Texas both on stilts and sitting on the ground like oil reserves.
In my neighborhood growing up, shoes were used to commemorate one of the homies that had been taken from use. In other parts of the city It was also used to mark territory.
andre, you have an charming, infectious vibe. as your viewer, your cheerfulness and delightful curiosity is refreshing and impactful. i am thankful i found your channel: it makes me happy.
Salt and sand storage domes are common in New England where snow and ice can accumulate. Salt is spread on streets and highways first, then snowplows come in, then sand or a mix of both are spread if needed.
I’m from NYC In my neighborhood entrance when I was a kid, a teenager was tragically killed in a car accident right at the entrance and his shoes were hung over the power lines to commemorate him. His shoes have been there since 2003. Water towers provide water pressure to feed buildings and homes since they are above ground. They’re big because many towers are feeding entire towns or portions of cities. Never seen the blow up buildings but makes sense since it’s in the mid-west mostly. We don’t have that in NY. Hanging traffic lights are so normal that I didn’t even consider how stupid they are until this video. Yes, when there is a heavy storm, they wave around and it can sometimes be hard to see what light is shown. They are made so they don’t hit each other. If there are a lot of trees and vegetation traffic lights on the side of the road could be obscured which could result in an accident so it’s easier to see if they are across and above the road. Also when there are very windy road, this is helpful. Also if roads are very windy or lights hanging are obscured, there will be backup traffic lights posted on the opposite side of the curve early before you get to the main set of lights. This is extremely helpful during storms, during months when trees have foliage, and at night. I have no clue of the domes lol. I guess now I know where they store the salt. During the summer we often would burst the hydrants open and have a water park day in the street. People still do this and it was a fun time being a kid.
If the area with fire hydrants follows standards the colors will tell the firefighters how much water can flow from that particular hydrant. Red is usually a max of 250 gallons per minute, yellow 250 to 500 gallons per minute, white 500 to 1000 gallons per minute and blue or green over 1000 gallons per minute. Spacing of hydrants depends upon what is called the fireload of the area. Industrial or large city areas more hydrants closer together than a residential or rural area. In many residential areas an engine (firetruck with pump) will carry a standard supply hose set up of 1200 feet. The hydrants would be spaced at 600 foot intervals and if one hydrant is out of service the supply line can be stretched to the next hydrant down the street.
My mom’s hobby while traveling the USA was to take photos of water towers. She said you could see how good a town was by its water towers. Some were so beautiful. Some towns in Ga have a water tower in shape of a peach.
The salt storage domes are indeed a regional thing - as is the use of salt on winter roads. The Northeast and Upper Midwest are the places where salt usage is both heavy, and common. The southern States rarely need it, and as you move west - the use of salt on the roads is less common for a number of reasons.
As a kid, my friends and I would chuck our old (last year's, as we got new shoes as we grew) shoes up on the neighborhood power lines when we finally got a new pair of shoes. But Lawrence is right, many people in different regions have completely different reasons for chucking shoes on power lines, lol.
That Quibbletown Middle School is in my town. I was shocked to see it. My dad actually helped build the school years ago. It's pronounced KWIB-uhl-town.
Traffic lights in the USA are quite a bit larger than they look when hanging above. They run the gambit between 30 and 42 inches tall and the lenses are about the size of your head. Most are set on timers although sensors are used as an interrupt for turn-only lanes to work them into the normal sequence when needed. Also of note is that it is now pretty rare to see an actual Green light being used in them these days, as most of those lenses have been replaced with one that has a noticeably blue-green color to help those with a red-green color blindness.
To add to the list, old bicycles painted white and decorated with flowers left standing by roadside. These are "ghost bikes" left to commemorate where a cyclist was killed by passing cars.
In many/most places in the US, fire hydrants can be easily found while driving down the road because there is a blue reflector glued to the centerline of the road. The hydrant is on the left or right side of the road at the blue reflector.
Our traffic signals in Florida here are on quite thick support poles, this is because of hurricanes and tropical storms. They're more mounted in place to prevent them from being toppled over by wind. The lights themselves are horizontal on their side with red on the most left side.
A water tower can be filled with a single electric pump, or with a hand pump. And gravity provides the pressure to push it out of your pipes. Very convenient in an era when there was no electricity (but we had plumbing) or in areas where power goes out from time to time from storms/etc. Power may go out but the water stays available.
My brother's Boy Scout project was to glue reflectors in the streets by every fire hydrant in our subdivision. That way the firefighters could easily find them. And in some big cities, it's tradition for someone to run a fire hydrant in the summer and kids to play in the water spout.
You should realize that Americans often have trouble pronouncing some town names. The traffic lights on wires are far enough apart to not to hit each other. Both the kinds on wires and poles can and do come down in the hurricanes and tornadoes. It can be scary to be see them flexing in a storm.
@@user-qk4ks9vp9q We have a lot of Native names like Fusihatchee, Chattahoochee, Osanippa, Cusseta, Tallapoosa, Wedowee, Tallassee and so on and so on... Only the locals get them right, lol.
Having lived in both rural New York state, and Washington, it was funny to try to get the New Yorkers to pronounce Issaquah, Puyallup, and Sequim. Was fun to get the Washingtonians to try to say Onondaga, Skaneateles, and Canandaigua. (now that I live in Oregon, Tualatin joins the list. . .)
The water towers aren’t super common in the mountains here. They exist, but are better hidden unless it’s winter or fall because they are usually on the mountains and are just big tanks. In the flatter areas they are much more obvious and do look like that.
Water towers supply water to households. New York City had a LOT of water towers. The city would have to put a lot of pressure in the water pipes for water to reach up into all of the apartments and buildings. But a water tower on the top of a building only requires one pump to pump water up to it and then gravity takes over and supplies water to all of the apartments in that building. Towns would have them to supply water to all of the residents since it's easier to just pump water up into the tower and let gravity take over rather than pump water into each home.
in Pratt Kansas, two counties west of Wichita, the town has two water towers. When I was little, instead of the town name, you see Hot and the other Cold. Out west at elevation we get snow. I've never seen salt domes to house it. In Denver they used a mixture of salt and sand. Then you get two weeks of junk in the are kicked up by traffic. Last 40 years they went to magnesium chloride, a liquid. Probably what the airports use to de-ice jet wings.
Fire hydrants are color coded based on there flow rate and pressure. Red ones are 90psi/6 bar. The yellow and blue one, I think is 150 psi/10bar. There are teal colored ones, usually near an industrial complex with lots of flammable stuff, that are rated for 250 psi/17 bar. The types of hydrants are determined my building codes. You'll find red, typically the lowest rated of colors, in residential areas. The large dome things definitely hold salt for winter treating roads. They can be enormous. Sometimes even having a railroad connection. Also near these facilities is sand. Salt is only effective down to about 15F/-9C. When it gets colder than that, (in the Chicago area it does almost every year) sand is spread on the ice.
In the town I grew up in we had one of the older water towers (metal cylinder on legs) in the center of town and another one that was pretty much just a massive free-standing cylinder down by the park, possibly left over from when that part of town was an industrial area. That was removed some time when I was a teen in the 90's. Some time after I moved out they changed the one in town to the more modern tear-drop shaped one that held more water than the old one. I'm pretty sure they sold the old one to a smaller town nearby but I'm not certain where. With proper upkeep they can last an incredibly long time.
Some extra trivia about American fire hydrants: it is against the law to park your car beside one. If there is a fire and your car is parked beside one is becomes a serious obstacle for the firefighters, especially because when you connect the hose to the hydrant and turn it on the water pressure will effectively make the hose rigid and straight. There are many stories of firefighters _smashing out the windows of cars and running their hoses through the interior of the cars_ in order to do their jobs, and if they do that the law will be on _their_ side, not yours.
With respect to water towers, they are elevated metal water tanks built on high ground with low capacity water pumps at the base. I'm a civil engineer, and water towers are essential to the water distribution systems in the United States. They are designed for two primary purposes, to provide the necessary water pressure to homes and businesses, and to provide a minimal amount of water and water pressure to fire hydrants (which is also shown in this video--when you see a blue reflective "turtle" in the middle of a street, it's marking the location of a fire hydrant) throughout a community for fire protection. Fire vehicles responding to a fire will pull up to a fire hydrant equipped with hoses specifically designed to attach to the hydrant. The water pump at the base of the tower runs continuously pumping water into the elevated tank. During peak use times the water in the elevated tank drains down to provide the needed pressure to deliver water throughout the system, and during low use (overnight) the pump replenishes the level of water in the tanks for the next day. So it is a continuous "drain down" then "fill up" cycle, and it is the elevated water tower tank that makes this possible. "Quibbletown" would be pronounced "kwibble-town."
hardest part about getting you a fire hydrant is shipping. i have installed them, we use a tractor to lift em and hold em in place...shipping would be more than the cost of the thing..
I remember shoes dangling in my neighborhood growing up. No gangs, but there were a lot of Europeans who lived there, so it could have been a wedding thing. I've seen them in random other places as well. Also don't forget kids playing pranks on each other. Traffic lights are spaced far enough apart to not hit one another, centered to the lane being affected. A pole on the side of the road would not make sense for multiple lanes, and would also not be as visible from a distance. They often hang from telephone poles. In areas where phone lines are buried underground, you'll find the traffic lights usually attached to metal poles.
I live in a hilly area and our City water comes from wells fed by a giant aquifer. We have very large water tanks that are painted green to blend into the surrounding trees and we also have one water tower. Between the tanks and water tower, we have great water pressure because every thing is located up on the hills overlooking town and gravity makes a great contribution to that.
Regular shopping malls are completely enclosed and have AC. Whereas strip malls are usually smaller and are open air between each shop. No protection from wind, rain or the heat/cold.
The shoes thing has a lot of meanings. The military one has to do with Marines tossing their boots up after they finish their tours, the gang one is often just a legend, but some drug dealers do use them to mark territory. I’d say the most common reason is commemoration. I don’t know about birthdays or marriages, but I know it’s not uncommon for some people to toss a passed friend’s shoes up on a line in their neighborhood to remember them
I was always told that shoe-tossing was something college students did upon graduating, tossing their shoes up onto the power lines to "leave their old shoes behind," so to speak, to celebrate moving on to their next stage of life. But then I lived in a college town - maybe people just like to throw stuff on top of high things and different cities invent different reasons to do so based on their local culture.
It's usually high school kids who carry sneakers for gym class who throw their sneakers onto overhead electrical lines. Water towers give constant water pressure to water lines.
Water is pumped from underground to a high point especially in low terrain areas. The height creates high pressure so when you turn your tap on, there is pressure behind the water.
My friends used to joke that the roadside domes were "intercontinental ballistic zeppelin hangars", kind of riffing on the slightly pointed shape and intercontinental ballistic missile launchers.
The water towers are so big because of physics. The larger the volume, the less material you need overall. It's also why it's generally a spheroid. It's the same reason why single celled organisms have a size cap.
If the fire hydrant is red, it’s a primary water source. If it’s yellow, it’s an auxiliary water source. At least in Chicago. But don’t park your car in front of either or you’ll get a parking ticket and depending on where it is, you may come back and find your car is gone. (Towed away)
I live where we have many storms and lots of snow. Virtually all of the traffic lights are on the wires. They never come down! All right, probably some have, but I've not seen them come down in hurricanes, blizzards, rain storms, or heavy winds. My impression is the poles/structures the wires are strung to must come down before the wires normally would fall. The official name is progressive traffic control signel, but I've never heard anyone call them that. The names I am most familiar with are traffic light, light, and stop light. Diane, using Joe's tablet.
Water towers. the top is filled with water and there is a center vertical pipe. it has two purposes. One is a backup water supply for an area, usually an area that uses wells in case something happens. the second purpose is to help the water system it is connected to maintain water pressure. The higher the tower, the more pressure that tower pushes onto the groundwater system. It helps with water flow.
Ok so I'm from Illinois, usually the shoes on powerlines meant that you got jumped and they stole your shoes, tied them together and threw them up there to remind you not to mess with them.
Fire hydrants are different colors to indicate how many gallons per minute the hydrant can provide. Red is most common. Water towers are used for holding treated water, and they are high up to keep the pressure to homes and businesses up since they rely on gravity.
We have all of those things in the South (Atlanta area), except the salt storage. Roads ice so rarely here that the infrastructure for dealing with it is shared between multiple states. This is why the south will often “shut down” when the big ice storms do happen.
Teenagers sometimes throw their old shoes over lines, rather than throwing them away properly. Sometimes they stay up there for several years. The power company doesn't seem inclined to remove them.
What's funny is I can't ever remember seeing a traffic light fall to the ground. I've seen massive trees fall before the traffic lights. Talk about resilient. However, I understand that its happened before, like when there is a tornado etc..
I’ve seen traffic lights on the ground that had fallen and they are very large.
Here in Ohio, I've seen light poles brought down during an ice storm or two, or the occasional tornado, but I don't think I've ever seen hanging lights down
@@aggravatedHart It's amazing how much bigger they are on the ground😂
I've seen one that was being broken by a tropical storm. It shook all over the place and fell flying to the ground behind my car as I had just cleared the intersection
Same, I've only seen them fall in extreme weather which often takes out the pole kind as well.
You need water towers to provide water pressure. Otherwise each house would have to have several pumps. With water towers, gravity supplies the water pressure since water tends to seek its own height.
Water simply flows downward, if it has a route, just like sand or any fluid. Pumping the water into a raised container works because the pressure is the same throughout the system because liquids, especially water, are largely not compressible. So having a tank at 50' up gives you the same pressure from miles away as you would have if your house was directly under the tower. Well, the same water pressure - the emotional pressure of living under a tank like that would be a major issue.
It should be noted that water towers are not used where there are enough hills available to locate the tanks on. Then the hills' height substitutes for the tower and is much more protected from wind, debris, freezing etc. This type is usually much larger than those on towers as it is easier to put a big tank on a hill and it is convenient to have all that water pumped in and ready to go.
What he said 👍
Pump up into the tower once versus pumping water all the time to make pressure. It's also all treated for drinking and consolidated so it is easier to test. 👽🗿👽🗿👽
@@marklar7551 Yup this is the reason. It helps you pump water during non peak times to keep the load on the grid lower.
And the water towers may be somewhat large in cases, because they're also expected to act as a reservoir lasting more than a day in the event of an extended power failure. Thus if a storm takes the electricity out, the city water will still work just fine.
As a retired Firefighter/Paramedic I can tell you that SOME American NEIGHBORHOODS have hydrants that are no more than 500’ apart, and that hydrants are painted by how much water they can supply. They are yearly inspected by Fire Departments, by how much water they can put out (measured by an accurate Fire Department hydrometer), and that they are clear of debris. Water towers ARE that big, and as part of our incoming physicals, we actually rappelled down from one…. 👍
I am also a former firefighter and the information you gave about the hydrants are accurate in your area, but vary around the country. It is one of my personal biggest gripes that it is not standardized around the country. In my arena, they are usually spaced closer to 1000 feet apart, and only closer to the 500 feet in the denser urban areas. Also, the color coding of hydrants are not consistent between municipalities and some water districts do not use any code. In my area, the size / volume of a water tower is calculated to hold the three day average for the area it supplies water to.
my husband and I have climbed up one to put up and maintain the radio system for the fire dept radio and for our ham.radio repeater.
@@johnhenkel1828 Thank you for the great information, brother! I live in North Georgia (in the mountains) and figured if it was that way for us, everyone should have something similar. It’s also great to know that I’m not the only FF who watches this channel. 👍
@@User_Albert_V oh, we are fairly close. I am from southern middle Tennessee.
@@johnhenkel1828 Dang, sir! We ARE close! You take care and stay safe. 😊👍
There is a lot of lore about shoes on power lines, I don’t think there's only one reason. In addition to other things already mentioned in the comments, I've also read that some people do it to memorialize someone who has passed away.
After living in the midwest for 50 years now, I can't say I've ever seen that.
I'm an American in my 70s and I've never seen shoes hanging like that. Must not be a Midwestern thing.
My mom told me same thing, shoes represented someone who passed away.
@@thephilosophicalagnostic2177 probably depends the area, Dallas county you'll see it here and there, but we're south west in Texas, so probably done everywhere, just some places and communities it's just infrequent enough to not be seen or if small town, prob not a thing in small towns.
@@thephilosophicalagnostic2177 I'm in a suburb of Minneapolis, MN and I see it a lot here. Now I'm curious if there's more info available about where this tends to happen.
Yes, Andre, our Water Towers are that big and even bigger. Holding water up at a higher elevation than the surrounding area creates more water pressure due to the potential energy that water holds. I watch a lot of pressure washing videos on UA-cam, and I constantly hear from UK pressure washers that they have low water pressure in a lot of areas. I can tell you right now that that is in part due to lack of water towers. In my small town of 9000 people, we have 2 water towers on opposite sides of town. One of them has our Town Name and High School mascot name on it. And the 2nd one, which was built just within the past 20 years or so is near me, as a matter of fact. I can't recall if it's got any wording on it or not. Those towers that were labeled Salem Quakers is like the same style that our new one was built like.
Oh, I should add that when my father was still working back in the early 90s, in the USDA (agriculture) , his last position was getting city water and sewer systems into the more rural areas. One of the things that went along with that was getting water towers built. When we'd drive around the area, he'd always point out which towers he helped get built.
my town has like 3, 2 pretty small ones with i dont even remember whats on them and a 3rd super large one near the walmart which has our school mascot
I used to work for a water treatment plant. We were also responsible for the upkeep on the property surrounding the water towers. Most times there are random "pump stations" that just look like a time brick building just randomly somewhere around town. These pump stations help with the pressure and flow supplying the water across towns. Even small rural town will often times have multiple water towers. From my experience working for the City Water Department these huge towers supply water to a set or designated area. they volume of water is generally 2 maybe 3 days of water if the plant were to stop running. The water inside is or has been treated but is also still monitored. There are huge chemistry labs with massive computer monitor systems constantly evaluating the water levels, chemical levels etc. If level readings are off adjustments can be made to the water being treated at that very moment being piped into the tower to replace what is currently being used. The bad thing to this scenario is any adjustments made at the plant end will take 48 to 72 hrs to reach the Tower and offset the current readings. So when a city issues a boil ban on the city water for instance. You were already drinking, showering, cooking, brushing your teeth with contaminated water for most likely 2 days before you were made aware. So honestly contaminated water can often be the cause of the "flu like" or "stomach Bug" symptoms going around in any given area. If you will notice often times (I now work in an Emergency Room and we see this more than people would be comfortable to know) out breaks of vomiting, fevers, stomach issues etc will be from people in a certain area and the common thing they all have is water. Since all towers service a set area only usually you can tie things back to they live in the same general area or they work, attend school, daycare, church etc in the same area. Its crazy how little the general public knows about the water system, how much varies from city to city but it is terrifying how easily these towers can be gotten into and contaminated.
Where I grew up, the shoes dangling on the lines were supposed to be in memory of those who died in some sort of street violence, not necessarily gang involved, but many were.
I've lived on the left coast all my 75 years and only occasionally seen one, maybe two pair of shoes on a wire. Must be a mid west thing.
We see them pretty often here in the south and it is also to commemorate those that have died.
@@Itsakindamagiclots of them spotted in NY
You paint the name of the town on the water tower because before GPS, pilots who would dust crops with pesticides would use the water towers to navigate.
Never new really love PA❤
It's also just neat to look at
A certain amount of small-town one-upmanship may be part of it, too. Like when two neighboring towns' high school sports teams are perennial rivals, so first one town and then the other repaints their tower in their respective teams' colors.
Grain elevators are also a good focal point.🇺🇸
Nice car drivers on a road trip too.
4:55 Fun Fact: the movie What’s Eating Gilbert Grape that Lawrence is referencing here was filmed mostly in Manor, TX and some other surrounding small towns, just outside of Austin. The scene shown here was shot on our town’s old water tower. It’s retired from service now but still serves as a “monument” for the town. This scene in particular includes me and two of my friends as extras on the ground. The blue building and tires are part of the local tire shop owned by a family friend, whose son I went to school with.
That's so cool.
That is a fun fact! Very cool 😎
You also need water towers to provide water pressure for the fire hydrants.
In our area (Kansas) the color the hydrant is painted tells the approaching fire brigade something about the flow rate that hydrant can provide.
Rock Chalk!
I just spent the last 2 and a half weeks visiting family in Kansas.
I believe that's national actually. Specifically, it's the color the cap is painted. I'm a mystery writer and I used that as a clue in my first book. 😊
@@lorettaross5146 no unfortunately there is no mandate on the colors nationwide. I am a former firefighter and just in our mutual aid response area, there are four different paint codes that I had to be familiar with as I was primarily a pump operator/ engineer on my truck.
@@johnhenkel1828 oops! My research failed me. It was a minor plot point at least. 😬
Sometimes we have three or more lanes of traffic going each direction. Large vehicles can block the view of traffic lights on poles for drivers of smaller vehicles. Hang the lights in the middle and they are more easily seen by drivers in all lanes and all sizes of vehicles.
I have sandblasted and painted the outside and inside of water towers. The inside has a chemical liner sprayed inside of them and the outside of them have a two part epoxy paint. The old school towers before the invention of spray on chemical liner the inside of the tower was coated with a food safe grease to prevent them from rusting. The biggest tank that I have worked on was a 3 million gallon tank next to the airport in Jackson Tennessee
I've never seen shoes dangling from power lines, but then, I live in rural Northern Minnesota. We use those inflated dome-style buildings for sports fields, horse arenas, all kinds of spaces that you'd like to have covered because of weather. Those big (wooden?) domes are usually on county or city land to store salt and sand for the road crews in winter. It really needs to be kept dry.
We have a lot of things to do indoors designed for our Minnesota winters. We have the longest connected skyway system, I believe. I know I use to cut off 6 blocks walking in the cold, by walking in the skyway in downtown St Paul Minnesota
We had them a lot in NY along rural roads years ago.
Ohio has many areas that have shoes on the lines.
I’m from New Mexico and I have definitely seen them around here a lot
I've seen the inflated domes used for storage and as a type of greenhouse/hothouse as well.
There is usually an indication on the road itself as to the location of fire hydrants. Where I live, there are reflectors running down the dividing line. Anytime you see a blue one, there is a hydrant beside the road. Many years ago our county did a fundraiser and gave a prize for the best paint job on a fire hydrant. My friend, a dalmation breeder, won by painting his to look like a dalmatian with a fire hat. Fun.
That's actually extremely unusual.
@@cp368productions2 Thanks for letting me know! Maybe it's just for rural counties like mine that have way fewer streetlights? We actually had to have a streetlight installed at our driveway and we pay a separate monthly bill. It isn't provided. But hey, that's what makes these so much fun, tbh; learning stuff about the world outside! Take care and thanks again for the correction!
Up north, it's common for for hydrants to have a colorful pole, several feet tall, mounted on or next to them. That way, they're easy to find when they get buried by snow plows after a storm.
@@LiveFreeOrDieDH That's smart!
We had the fire hydrants in our town painted red, white and blue during the countries bi-centennial. But they are now back to the yellow/orange color.
6:05 water runs downhill. Water towers are there to have water above the other buildings, so that you can generate pressure to feed all the buildings with the water
In America you do not need a water pump if you have City water, because gravity brings it to you. You only need a water pump if you have a well to bring it out of the ground
I have NEVER seen a pair of shoes tossed over a power-line. I’m 72 and live in Missouri
Wow, really?
@@CC-xn5xi yes, really. However, I have seen them thrown over goal posts when I was a kid in small town Kansas.
I grew up in SoCal and remember the occasional pair of shoes, mostly tennis shoes, hanging over phone lines. Mostly tossed over them by local teens for any number of reasons, boredom, if not alcohol, seems to have been involved. I'm just 74 so far.
I have a number of times.
There is an American comic strip, Wallace the Brave, which features a young boy who lives in costal town in Rhode Island. There is a running joke that every year after school closes he throws his shoes in the ocean. Also "The shoe must go on" back in the 1950's to the 1970's there was a popular TV variety show, The Ed Sullivan Show, and people would often joke about the way he would pronounce words, like pronouncing "show" so it would sound like "shoe".
Its gonna be a really big "shoe" 🎵🎼🎸🎹🎙️🎙️
I grew up in a smaller city north of Boston, MA, back in the 1970's. Sneakers dangling from telephone wires was just a thing you'd see. The city had no gang problem that I ever learned of, so I don't think it was gang related. Honestly, it was probably just people bored and getting rid of an old pair of shoes more than anything else. Streetlights hanging from wires always struck me as weird, too. In sufficient stormy weather, they *can* come down. On the other hand, it may be a cost-effective decision where it's relative cheap to put them back up, and it's just not worth the money to try to make something indestructible. Especially in tornado alley, etc.
Im from Massachusetts, born in the 90s and I still see them. No gang relation just some old shoes still
Same here. In a small northern Massachusetts city on the NH border growing up in the 80s and 90s and the city (town back then) had no gang problem at all. Yet I saw sneakers dangling from wires all of the time! I just assumed it was a copycat effect coupled with excessive alcohol.
@@coollady2179 and people drive into street light poles and bring them down.
Or it's just plain old-fashioned bullying at work, with some jerk kid tossing another kid's shoes up there to be a dick.
@@sharondornhoff7563 Never thought of that, but sadly, it's plausible.
Yes, water towers that big are everywhere. My university had it's own water tower. They're so common, I forget they're there. They usually have the name of the town painted on it (or my school, in my case).
There is a water tower in Gaffney, South Carolina, right next to Interstate 85 that looks like a huge peach, leaves and all. It is something we always looked for when making the regular 500 mile trip between Georgia and Virginia. It's pretty neat looking.
I'm from Georgia and I've always said South Carolina should be the Peach State.
I knew about this water tower because of House of Cards!
Water towers create water pressure through gravity.
Every city paints fire hydrants differently for some reason. It’s their choice I guess. They are also changed out once in a while for the latest version.
Color is based on water pressure, type/size of hose that can be used with the fire hydrant, and/or available flow.
A water tower is basically a battery - not of electricity, but of water pressure
I live in Georgia. Here, we have a county called...Butts. Their water tower says, "Beautiful Butts county." I couldn't help but laugh at the cleverness of it.
Traffic lights: I have never seen them fall. The lines may go down an the lights go out, but the lights never fall. I grew up saying, lights, traffic lights, red lights, stop lights, etc. What ever you choose to call them is right.
The hydrants were a source of many childhood memories for us. They can be red, silver, yellow, etc. I remember someone (We never saw them) would come and open up the hydrant and the water would just flow. All of the children would have a ball playing in that water. Also, NEVER park in front of one.
They often open the hydrants to flush the lines.
We have a few vertical poles for traffic lights on a street near where I live, and honestly, it's a heck of a lot easier to see the traffic lights when they're positioned horizontally, above each lane. The number of times I've nearly gone through the intersection with the vertical pole lights because I didn't see them is scary. There's a horizontal light just a small ways beyond.
In my area we have the salt sheds that are usually large metal structures where salt/sand is stored for the occasional ice/snow event. Water towers are common in my area & are used for storage & water pressure. There is a water reservoir (lake) near my home & the water treatment plant & a huge storage tank on the site. I have a fire hydrant in my yard which I have to mow around.
Quibbletown: this must be a real town, but a "quibble" is a little dispute. Water towers: to increase the water pressure when it goes down, and to store water. In my city water reservoirs are underground with a park on top. Shoes on wires: to show that drugs are available here, which gang dominates the block, or that somebody can reach impossible places. "The shoe must go on": a pun on "The show must go on", and putting on shoes. "Strip mall": they're a "strip" or horizontal row of one-story shops.
In a lot of areas of the country it snows so a marker might not be visible in the street. As it is residents who have a hydrant in their yard are suppose to clear the snow around them. If they were flush to the ground it would be harder to find or use.
over winter months we have hydrants attached with a 4' pole (hydrant markers) and now they are also wrapped in plastic to protect from road de-icing salt
Not just an issue finding it. But imagine having a plowed snowbank covering it the winter. Hydrants are supposed to be kept clear for the most part, but it would be worse if it was under a cover where a responding crew had to hammer all the ice off first in order to get at it.
Salt used in winter to melt snow has to be stored dry so that it doesn't solidify into bigger pieces that will not fit through the truck spreaders used.
No domes in FL, but thats because we don't need salt 😂
Lol
Just the Salt Life.
9:10 That used to be a very common traffic signal installation in Michigan. The signals would be hung on a diagonal span wire across the intersection. This particular example has two signals for the through (and right turn) direction, and one for the left turn (marked with a backlit "LEFT" box over it). The signal has the following cycle: green ball + flashing red ball for the left turn - you can turn left when opposing traffic is clear; yellow ball + flashing left turn red; red ball + green, then yellow arrow for the left turn to clear out the left turn lane. Then a solid red ball for all movements in that direction, allowing for right turn on red if no prohibitory sign exists.
9:44 Those signals, on the monopole, are common in Illinois, where Lawrence currently lives. There, the protected/permitted lefts are controlled by the five-light towers with the green and yellow arrows on the bottom.
4:48 OK so about water towers. The water has to be pumped from lower elevation to higher elevation. At night not many people need water but during the afternoons and other times there could be very high demand, which can far exceed the ability of the pumps to move water. Additionally pumps require power to operate. Instead of constantly pumping water on-demand to all the houses, the pumps fill up one giant water tower constantly over time, and gravity is used to allow the water to flow into the pipes and into homes. This is why they are built very high in the air. This is also why your water still works even if the power is off. The fact it is a giant container means the levels can rise during the low usage hours and fall during peak usage, but there is always an available supply of water available regardless.
Since you liked the hydrants, I have a bit of trivia for you.
Outside the large cities and in the north, there are volunteer groups, along with the local firefighters that go around after a snow and dig out the hydrants. The ones I know that organize the hydrant shovel outs are the Boy Scouts, the VFW. This happens on hydrants that are remote or aren't on or near private property, because if the hydrant is on your property shoveling it out is your responsibility and you can be fined for not doing it.
When you pour grain, sand, salt, etc it forms a pile that resembles a pyramid in some ways. The "salt domes" can be filled from the top via a sort of angled conveyor belt. It spills down into the building and forms a pile that looks a bit like the building (or rather, the building resembles the pile.
A truck fills by backing in, and there are chutes or hoppers that let the pile slide directly into the truck. As the pile shrinks, a bulldozer can drive around inside and fill the chutes or you can just open the top (in good weather) and fill the whole building again. It's very practical, very few moving parts. (edit: very much like using a dry food dispenser to fill a bag of coffee at the grocery store, but bigger and with salt)
Didn't know that - thanks for the info.
Fire Hydrants actually have their valves located below ground level - to protect the fire mains from freezing - so they are shallower in warmer climates, and deeper in cold climates.
The specially shaped fitting on the top is what turns the valve open or shut.
Those domes house road salt for highways. they are everywhere in the northern midwest. They are placed at various points along Interstates and usually have the DOT (Dept of Transportation) snowplows/salt trucks parked next to them.
Atlanta Georgia doesn't get snow often. Maybe once a year. But we aren't good about clearing the roads - probably because it happens so infrequently. But when we do, all heck breaks loose. Within the past 10 years or so, I've noticed that there are salt/brine/gravel places along the interstates. Better to have an not need, than need and not have.
When I left Georgia in 2006, it snowed on the very day. It was amazing how much they collapsed over just a bit of snow. No one seemed to know how to drive in it.. that’s actually the scariest thing seeing multiple people fishing tailing in front of you at the same time. I believe at the time much of the people that would plow were independent contractors.
Well it's going to be 70 degrees the very next day so just let it melt then :)
I was living in Minneapolis in 1991, when a big blizzard struck on Halloween. The Metrodome sports stadium's inflatable roof had to be hosed with high-pressure hot water to avert its collapse under the sudden load of 20 inches of snow.
That was a very loong winter! I took my daughters Trick or treating until the snow got too deep! 🥶
In the US Military, it is somewhat common for someone who is within a month of completing their term of service to take one of their pairs of boots and sling it up onto a phone wire like that, the implication being "I'm not going to need these boots any more, I'm OUT OF HERE!"
4:43 - As a European, you're probably familiar with the Roman aqueduct system. They used tall trestles to bring water from mountain streams to fountains in the cities. The brilliant thing about their design is that since the water source was at a higher elevation than the destination, gravity provided the water pressure without the need for pumps. The same principle is behind the functioning of water towers (although pumps ARE necessary for filling them). A single tower provides, depending on capacity, enough high-pressure water for several neighborhoods at a minimum electrical cost. We get extra help in my home town because our two major water towers are on top of a tall mountain ridge.
8:50 - This is a simple thing. In 'old world' cities where the building layouts are centuries old and the roads were designed so just a pair of horse-drawn carts could pass, most of the roads are two-lane affairs and one traffic signal is enough for each side. In the US, though, where roads can have 4, 6, or even 8 lanes of traffic, you need more lights to make sure everyone knows whether they can advance safely or not. A pole stretching across the road can only support so many lights before it collapses, so many intersections have the traffic lights suspended from cables that are anchored at both sides. And no, they don't bang against each other in the wind because a) they're usually far enough apart to prevent that, and b) they would all be swinging in the direction of the wind anyway.
10:13 - As a bonus, here's a clip from a late 80's cartoon show satirizing the concept of Mini Malls: ua-cam.com/video/J5RuxqtOICA/v-deo.html
11:09 - I've lived in America for 90% of my life (barring a stint in Austria during my early childhood) and even I was confused by these things.
12:18 - These topics must be kismet, because here's another segment from the same cartoon making a brief joke about fire hydrants: ua-cam.com/video/Gaf4miodCiQ/v-deo.html
As an additional note, a water tower in America has a capacity between 250,000 and 1.8 million gallons of water depending on the size of the community. The average American household uses 80-100 gallons of water per day.
The square/cube law also plays a role in water tower sizing. For a roughly spherical shape, the volume increases as the cube of the radius, but the surface area increases as the square of the radius. The water is in the volume, but the steel is in the area. Less steel is required per unit volume with larger containers.
Water towers are popular in flat areas, like valleys and the midwest. Areas that have hills usually put massive water tanks on the top of hills, acting for water pressure but also as water storage to ensure there is at least some water in case of emergency! My college town is downstream of a reservoir, so we might get some water pressure from treating water from that higher elevation, but I haven’t looked into it. It is city water so they might just pressurize it at the treatment plant!
We have all manner of designs for water towers in the USA. They usually try to make them interesting, or at least not ugly, since they're so visible. A lot of small towns have the town name on the water tower. In places with hills, they'll often build a large water tank on top of the hill, instead of a water tower. The one in my area is painted green and surrounded by trees, so you can't see it unless you know it's there.
The purpose of a water tower/elevated reservoir is to provide all houses with water using gravity. Pumps are used to fill the water tower/reservoir, but not electricity is needed after that. None of our houses have a pump for city water. If there is a power outage, the water continues to work until the water tower/reservoir runs out. They try to size them to last at least two weeks without power. I've heard that some places require each house to have a pump to use city water, and then if the power goes out, they can't run the pump, and therefore they lose water too.
Anyone else notice she is not using a “head rest” on her seat? It’s not a “head rest” but is there to prevent whiplash and neck injury in accidents, even minor ones. This kinda shocked me like seeing someone removing the seatbelt. “Let’s keep your body in place but your head & neck, ‘forget about it’”. Absolutely scared for her safety. Adjust the seat & head rest just keep it in place some what behind your head plz and thank you.
11:45 Yes, we are all aware of these. However, we don't have any salt shelters in Florida, but I did live up north for the first half of my life and we needed it constantly during the winter for snow.
We do in Illinois. We have to.
Large multi-lane roads may require different signals for each lane, and you also can't count on seeing a traffic light that's three lanes over to your right mounted on a pole at the corner.
Those lights are much bigger than you think - most people are shocked when they see one up close - and they are very heavy, so it takes an awfully strong wind to push one. Traffic light, stop light, and even red light, but I've never heard "stop and go light".
The traffic lights on wires are actually extremely strong. I've seen a fallen tree leaning on one once and it was holding the tree up without a problem. I'm sure not having the metal pole saves money, but also in places where it gets really windy, the ability to sway probably makes it better able to handle the wind.
The only time I've been traffic lights come down is when places that usually don't get hurricane-force winds got a hurricane-force wind unexpectedly. In areas that get hurricanes, the traffic lights are either better reinforced, or are taken down in advance of the storm.
Water towers hold the water for the whole town, and are being constantly refilled - from the water treatment plant, so the water is safe & drinkable. The height is to provide gravity pressure, thrust the pipes to the faucet. Most have the town name printed on them, for civic pride.
Salt domes are found in any state that has snow in the winter, the size & number getting bigger the further north you go.
Traffic lights is the most common name.
Andre, it all really depends on where you live. One place may be gang related but others could be something else.
True
9:30 it's done this way because it is both fast and cheap. The low voltage electric grid is put together with spit and rubber bands. There're multiple reasons for this, our utility companies are for profit and operate a 'tight ship'. The weather or traffic accidents will eventually destroy any type of light and it will need to be replaced immediately. Mounting every last light on a pole or solid structure would use up unbelievable amounts of raw materials.
I'm going to be pedantic. The hydrant is actually below ground, what you see is just the top cover that has threaded ports and supports the valve stem. The valve is at the same depth, under ground, as the water main. They are spaced apart based on local laws, but I used to have to put them every 400ft so the emergency responders wouldn't have to work too hard to find water. We also put them at the ends of lines and the tops of hills so you can bleed air out of the pipes
I love seeing André react to the silly puns Laurence uses to break up his video 😂
Fire hydrants can be one of several colors in body and top, but at the very least, each will have a distinct color on their tops for three reasons. 1)the top color indicates the amount of water available at that hydrant which is measured in gallons per minute (GPM). 2)A black top (or whatever local color is adopted) will tell you a hydrant is inactive 3) even though the majority of hydrants must contain drinkable water, some are hooked up to sources that are not drinkable, so the color may also indicate this as well.
To elaborate on what a couple of others have said, water towers are generally used to provide water pressure to a wide area, an entire town or section of a city with city-provided water service. Smaller ones exist or used to exist on older tall buildings in cities to provide even pressure to the whole thing, but modern water systems have largely done away with this type. Either way, the idea is the same; pump a large amount of water up into the tower for storage, and then gravity provides the pressure for the whole area. It also acts as a sort of buffer for the water system, so that if a whole bunch of people are using water faster than the pump can fill the tower, everyone will still have pressure! They will also continue to provide pressure in the case of a power outage until they run out.
Ok, i had to pause. In the Midwest, those are salt domes. They are quickly accessible by municipalities for incoming snowstorms. Its used by the ton.
3:49 The only experience I have with shoes on phone/power lines like that was bullying. The bullies steal the shoes of their target and throw them up for a "laugh" (their own not the victim's).
That design of water tower is TINY compared to some other designs. We have enormous ones in Texas both on stilts and sitting on the ground like oil reserves.
In my neighborhood growing up, shoes were used to commemorate one of the homies that had been taken from use. In other parts of the city It was also used to mark territory.
andre, you have an charming, infectious vibe. as your viewer, your cheerfulness and delightful curiosity is refreshing and impactful. i am thankful i found your channel: it makes me happy.
Salt and sand storage domes are common in New England where snow and ice can accumulate. Salt is spread on streets and highways first, then snowplows come in, then sand or a mix of both are spread if needed.
I’m from NYC
In my neighborhood entrance when I was a kid, a teenager was tragically killed in a car accident right at the entrance and his shoes were hung over the power lines to commemorate him. His shoes have been there since 2003.
Water towers provide water pressure to feed buildings and homes since they are above ground. They’re big because many towers are feeding entire towns or portions of cities.
Never seen the blow up buildings but makes sense since it’s in the mid-west mostly. We don’t have that in NY.
Hanging traffic lights are so normal that I didn’t even consider how stupid they are until this video. Yes, when there is a heavy storm, they wave around and it can sometimes be hard to see what light is shown. They are made so they don’t hit each other. If there are a lot of trees and vegetation traffic lights on the side of the road could be obscured which could result in an accident so it’s easier to see if they are across and above the road. Also when there are very windy road, this is helpful. Also if roads are very windy or lights hanging are obscured, there will be backup traffic lights posted on the opposite side of the curve early before you get to the main set of lights. This is extremely helpful during storms, during months when trees have foliage, and at night.
I have no clue of the domes lol. I guess now I know where they store the salt.
During the summer we often would burst the hydrants open and have a water park day in the street. People still do this and it was a fun time being a kid.
If the area with fire hydrants follows standards the colors will tell the firefighters how much water can flow from that particular hydrant. Red is usually a max of 250 gallons per minute, yellow 250 to 500 gallons per minute, white 500 to 1000 gallons per minute and blue or green over 1000 gallons per minute. Spacing of hydrants depends upon what is called the fireload of the area. Industrial or large city areas more hydrants closer together than a residential or rural area. In many residential areas an engine (firetruck with pump) will carry a standard supply hose set up of 1200 feet. The hydrants would be spaced at 600 foot intervals and if one hydrant is out of service the supply line can be stretched to the next hydrant down the street.
they built a water tower in my current town of residence in 2016. its 182ft tall (55 meters), and holds 750,000gal (2.83 million liters)
My mom’s hobby while traveling the USA was to take photos of water towers. She said you could see how good a town was by its water towers. Some were so beautiful. Some towns in Ga have a water tower in shape of a peach.
Those big bulbous white watertower.. is actually a small one! They get much much much wider than that with a bunch of supports under it.
The salt storage domes are indeed a regional thing - as is the use of salt on winter roads.
The Northeast and Upper Midwest are the places where salt usage is both heavy, and common.
The southern States rarely need it, and as you move west - the use of salt on the roads is less common
for a number of reasons.
As a kid, my friends and I would chuck our old (last year's, as we got new shoes as we grew) shoes up on the neighborhood power lines when we finally got a new pair of shoes. But Lawrence is right, many people in different regions have completely different reasons for chucking shoes on power lines, lol.
That Quibbletown Middle School is in my town. I was shocked to see it. My dad actually helped build the school years ago. It's pronounced KWIB-uhl-town.
Traffic lights in the USA are quite a bit larger than they look when hanging above. They run the gambit between 30 and 42 inches tall and the lenses are about the size of your head. Most are set on timers although sensors are used as an interrupt for turn-only lanes to work them into the normal sequence when needed. Also of note is that it is now pretty rare to see an actual Green light being used in them these days, as most of those lenses have been replaced with one that has a noticeably blue-green color to help those with a red-green color blindness.
To add to the list, old bicycles painted white and decorated with flowers left standing by roadside.
These are "ghost bikes" left to commemorate where a cyclist was killed by passing cars.
In many/most places in the US, fire hydrants can be easily found while driving down the road because there is a blue reflector glued to the centerline of the road. The hydrant is on the left or right side of the road at the blue reflector.
Our traffic signals in Florida here are on quite thick support poles, this is because of hurricanes and tropical storms. They're more mounted in place to prevent them from being toppled over by wind. The lights themselves are horizontal on their side with red on the most left side.
A water tower can be filled with a single electric pump, or with a hand pump. And gravity provides the pressure to push it out of your pipes.
Very convenient in an era when there was no electricity (but we had plumbing) or in areas where power goes out from time to time from storms/etc. Power may go out but the water stays available.
My brother's Boy Scout project was to glue reflectors in the streets by every fire hydrant in our subdivision. That way the firefighters could easily find them. And in some big cities, it's tradition for someone to run a fire hydrant in the summer and kids to play in the water spout.
You should realize that Americans often have trouble pronouncing some town names.
The traffic lights on wires are far enough apart to not to hit each other. Both the kinds on wires and poles can and do come down in the hurricanes and tornadoes. It can be scary to be see them flexing in a storm.
@@user-qk4ks9vp9q We have a lot of Native names like Fusihatchee, Chattahoochee, Osanippa, Cusseta, Tallapoosa, Wedowee, Tallassee and so on and so on... Only the locals get them right, lol.
Having lived in both rural New York state, and Washington, it was funny to try to get the New Yorkers to pronounce Issaquah, Puyallup, and Sequim. Was fun to get the Washingtonians to try to say Onondaga, Skaneateles, and Canandaigua. (now that I live in Oregon, Tualatin joins the list. . .)
@@Fusako8 I would definitely need a pronunciation guide, lol! It's cool though that we have such interesting place names, imo.
The water towers aren’t super common in the mountains here. They exist, but are better hidden unless it’s winter or fall because they are usually on the mountains and are just big tanks.
In the flatter areas they are much more obvious and do look like that.
Water towers supply water to households. New York City had a LOT of water towers. The city would have to put a lot of pressure in the water pipes for water to reach up into all of the apartments and buildings. But a water tower on the top of a building only requires one pump to pump water up to it and then gravity takes over and supplies water to all of the apartments in that building. Towns would have them to supply water to all of the residents since it's easier to just pump water up into the tower and let gravity take over rather than pump water into each home.
in Pratt Kansas, two counties west of Wichita, the town has two water towers. When I was
little, instead of the town name, you see Hot and the other Cold. Out west at elevation we get snow.
I've never seen salt domes to house it. In Denver they used a mixture of salt and sand. Then you get
two weeks of junk in the are kicked up by traffic. Last 40 years they went to magnesium chloride, a liquid.
Probably what the airports use to de-ice jet wings.
Fire hydrants are color coded based on there flow rate and pressure. Red ones are 90psi/6 bar. The yellow and blue one, I think is 150 psi/10bar. There are teal colored ones, usually near an industrial complex with lots of flammable stuff, that are rated for 250 psi/17 bar. The types of hydrants are determined my building codes. You'll find red, typically the lowest rated of colors, in residential areas.
The large dome things definitely hold salt for winter treating roads. They can be enormous. Sometimes even having a railroad connection. Also near these facilities is sand. Salt is only effective down to about 15F/-9C. When it gets colder than that, (in the Chicago area it does almost every year) sand is spread on the ice.
In the town I grew up in we had one of the older water towers (metal cylinder on legs) in the center of town and another one that was pretty much just a massive free-standing cylinder down by the park, possibly left over from when that part of town was an industrial area. That was removed some time when I was a teen in the 90's. Some time after I moved out they changed the one in town to the more modern tear-drop shaped one that held more water than the old one. I'm pretty sure they sold the old one to a smaller town nearby but I'm not certain where. With proper upkeep they can last an incredibly long time.
Some extra trivia about American fire hydrants: it is against the law to park your car beside one.
If there is a fire and your car is parked beside one is becomes a serious obstacle for the firefighters, especially because when you connect the hose to the hydrant and turn it on the water pressure will effectively make the hose rigid and straight. There are many stories of firefighters _smashing out the windows of cars and running their hoses through the interior of the cars_ in order to do their jobs, and if they do that the law will be on _their_ side, not yours.
With respect to water towers, they are elevated metal water tanks built on high ground with low capacity water pumps at the base. I'm a civil engineer, and water towers are essential to the water distribution systems in the United States. They are designed for two primary purposes, to provide the necessary water pressure to homes and businesses, and to provide a minimal amount of water and water pressure to fire hydrants (which is also shown in this video--when you see a blue reflective "turtle" in the middle of a street, it's marking the location of a fire hydrant) throughout a community for fire protection. Fire vehicles responding to a fire will pull up to a fire hydrant equipped with hoses specifically designed to attach to the hydrant. The water pump at the base of the tower runs continuously pumping water into the elevated tank. During peak use times the water in the elevated tank drains down to provide the needed pressure to deliver water throughout the system, and during low use (overnight) the pump replenishes the level of water in the tanks for the next day. So it is a continuous "drain down" then "fill up" cycle, and it is the elevated water tower tank that makes this possible. "Quibbletown" would be pronounced "kwibble-town."
Thank you for that explaination. I always wondered how they work.
hardest part about getting you a fire hydrant is shipping. i have installed them, we use a tractor to lift em and hold em in place...shipping would be more than the cost of the thing..
I remember shoes dangling in my neighborhood growing up. No gangs, but there were a lot of Europeans who lived there, so it could have been a wedding thing. I've seen them in random other places as well. Also don't forget kids playing pranks on each other.
Traffic lights are spaced far enough apart to not hit one another, centered to the lane being affected. A pole on the side of the road would not make sense for multiple lanes, and would also not be as visible from a distance. They often hang from telephone poles. In areas where phone lines are buried underground, you'll find the traffic lights usually attached to metal poles.
I live in a hilly area and our City water comes from wells fed by a giant aquifer. We have very large water tanks that are painted green to blend into the surrounding trees and we also have one water tower. Between the tanks and water tower, we have great water pressure because every thing is located up on the hills overlooking town and gravity makes a great contribution to that.
Regular shopping malls are completely enclosed and have AC. Whereas strip malls are usually smaller and are open air between each shop. No protection from wind, rain or the heat/cold.
The shoes thing has a lot of meanings. The military one has to do with Marines tossing their boots up after they finish their tours, the gang one is often just a legend, but some drug dealers do use them to mark territory. I’d say the most common reason is commemoration. I don’t know about birthdays or marriages, but I know it’s not uncommon for some people to toss a passed friend’s shoes up on a line in their neighborhood to remember them
I was always told that shoe-tossing was something college students did upon graduating, tossing their shoes up onto the power lines to "leave their old shoes behind," so to speak, to celebrate moving on to their next stage of life. But then I lived in a college town - maybe people just like to throw stuff on top of high things and different cities invent different reasons to do so based on their local culture.
It's usually high school kids who carry sneakers for gym class who throw their sneakers onto overhead electrical lines. Water towers give constant water pressure to water lines.
Water is pumped from underground to a high point especially in low terrain areas. The height creates high pressure so when you turn your tap on, there is pressure behind the water.
My friends used to joke that the roadside domes were "intercontinental ballistic zeppelin hangars", kind of riffing on the slightly pointed shape and intercontinental ballistic missile launchers.
The water towers are so big because of physics. The larger the volume, the less material you need overall. It's also why it's generally a spheroid.
It's the same reason why single celled organisms have a size cap.
If the fire hydrant is red, it’s a primary water source. If it’s yellow, it’s an auxiliary water source. At least in Chicago. But don’t park your car in front of either or you’ll get a parking ticket and depending on where it is, you may come back and find your car is gone. (Towed away)
I live where we have many storms and lots of snow. Virtually all of the traffic lights are on the wires. They never come down! All right, probably some have, but I've not seen them come down in hurricanes, blizzards, rain storms, or heavy winds. My impression is the poles/structures the wires are strung to must come down before the wires normally would fall. The official name is progressive traffic control signel, but I've never heard anyone call them that. The names I am most familiar with are traffic light, light, and stop light. Diane, using Joe's tablet.
Water towers. the top is filled with water and there is a center vertical pipe. it has two purposes. One is a backup water supply for an area, usually an area that uses wells in case something happens. the second purpose is to help the water system it is connected to maintain water pressure. The higher the tower, the more pressure that tower pushes onto the groundwater system. It helps with water flow.
Ok so I'm from Illinois, usually the shoes on powerlines meant that you got jumped and they stole your shoes, tied them together and threw them up there to remind you not to mess with them.
Fire hydrants are different colors to indicate how many gallons per minute the hydrant can provide. Red is most common.
Water towers are used for holding treated water, and they are high up to keep the pressure to homes and businesses up since they rely on gravity.
We have all of those things in the South (Atlanta area), except the salt storage. Roads ice so rarely here that the infrastructure for dealing with it is shared between multiple states.
This is why the south will often “shut down” when the big ice storms do happen.
Teenagers sometimes throw their old shoes over lines, rather than throwing them away properly. Sometimes they stay up there for several years. The power company doesn't seem inclined to remove them.