Thursday November 13th 2025

My cold weather tolerance seems to have adopted to a southern condition. This week has had daily highs in the sixties and overnight lows in the thirties. When I lived in the north that represented a nice fall day. Here in Florida I used it as an excuse to stay in and hibernate. I even had to turn the heat on to keep the inside temperature comfortable for sitting around. As the weekend approaches conditions are getting back to normal. The daily highs will be back in the low eighties.

Today was all about water in the park. First came a call for volunteers to read all of the water meters on Saturday. The property owners association pays the county bill monthly. Once a year in November they read the individual unit meters and bill the owner. It seems to work. However, that wasn’t the only thing to do with water today. Around noon we got a notification that there was a water leak on one of the roads in the park. Water on that road was getting turned off for maintenance. About an hour later we were notified that the water in the entire park was getting turned off. The next notification at about 5:30 or so announced the return of water service.

I have a few observations about “the great water outage”. On the positive side volunteers in the park did most if not all of the work. If they called a plumber, I didn’t see one. This probably represents a significant savings. Th other observation relates to the system used for notification. Residents receive a voice telephone call via an automated system. For most of the times they use the system, I would prefer a text message, but today’s “great water outage” explains why a lot of people like it. The argument has always been that many residents are of an age that don’t do text. The tone and content of today’s messages also demonstrate a desired value. The announcement calls carefully described the problem without too many details then described what a resident should and shouldn’t do. I know that you shouldn’t expect any water from the tap if the water is off, but maybe sufficient numbers of residents need the reminder. I am continually reminded that many things here are structured for older residents. There is at least one resident that is north of a century.