to wonder why this hasnt made the news given we are in a pandemic.

[HeIenaDove]

Thames Water customers without water in East London. Supermarkets quickly selling out of bottled water.

Over to you Sadiq Boris Matt Hancock. Im sure we will see a big statement about this from them given their concern for public health.

twitter.com/ecJulie/status/1313611112764637185?s=20

Shame the houses of Parliament weren't affected. Your water would be restored ASAP!

It is a public health issue.

Which is why local public health teams would be alerted. They can then determine if they need to do anything for vulnerable and housebound.

It's not really news worthy because it happens every now and again in every part of the country. It's the same with electricity.

It's getting as much publicity as a not particularly news worthy event would expect. No-one is trying to hide it.

I take your point about washing hands etc but most people have some sort of hand gel for an emergency.

By posting this in the Corona topic, I think it's possible that you may be trying to spread alarm by hinting at some sort of link between the two or at the very least, trying to make political capital out of it.

I might be wrong but that's how your post looks to me.

When you are without water, you realise how crucial it is.
Drinking., hand washing, showers, clothes washing, watering plants and trees {water butt is good for latter}.
Nightmare when water goes off.

Edit:...and FLUSHING THE LOO.

blimey OP, waterless storm in a teacup catastrophising or what. My neighbour passed the information on to me yesterday afternoon, I texted friends who I thought might be affected, filled up the kettle ,the Brita jug , two saucepans and a clean bucket. Job done. Planned on using some of the gallons of water delivered by cloud to various containers in my garden to flush the loo this morning but hey ho the water is back on.

I did not have to walk barefoot for 10 miles with an old petrol can on my back.

There was no panicking and rioting in the street.

Well done Thames water, sounds as though you had a nightmare night with problems across north, south and east London and as far out as Reading. Thank heavens no one did ask the government to get involved, it would be covidisaster all over again.

A few hours is since 6 pm last night. If you have a bottle fed baby and there's no water left in supermarkets, you are screwed. No water for cooking, washing, brushing teeth, no flushing toilet. Water still not back on by the way, so many schools are shut. It's not just 'a few hours' it will be around 24 hours as a new update from Thames water states. That's a long time. Haven't seen any water being distributed, apart from local facebook groups organising to distribute water to elderly people and families.

Its not made the news...because it's not news.

Thames Water has such huge problems with leaks that in 2018 Ofwat fined them and ordered them to repay £120m to customers.
Thames Water fined £120m over leaks
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-44395763

I was coming home from work last year when the road next to me started to turn into a swimming pool and the raised roundabout started to collapse for the second time in 2 months. The previous repair had failed in weeks. I reported it immediately to Thames Water cue days of disruption and low pressure/cut offs.

Sadly it is not unusual and was probably the 4th major failure within a 1 mile radius in the last 5 years.

Clay soil, iron pipes and profit margins are not a happy combination.

@ Downwithcovid did you have to self isolate 18 months ago? Were you free to go look for water from the shops?

In case you are not aware, you can feel two or feelings at the same time. Yes, I’m grateful that the water is back on. I would also appreciate it if a paid for essential service kept people informed of a disruption to their supply or for them to give vulnerable people water. I don’t count myself or my household as vulnerable. But there was a poster who was searching water for he neighbour who needed water for her neighbour who was on prescription formula milk.

Just because my water is on, it doesn’t mean everybody else water is on. Thames water said it could take up to 24hr to fix.

They deserve a big fine. If people like the man I saw on the school run are filling their cars up with bottles of water. Then government should at least encourage supermarkets to limit the amount of water allowed per person. The government is able to that.

If they hadn't privatised the fucking water companies we could have had some say over these fuck ups

Hilarious, water in Scotland isn't privatised and this sort of thing still happens. Nothing more frustrating watching nothing come out of the taps while there is a monsoon going on.

Over an 18mth or so period, my area was without water 5 or 6 times for 24 hours plus. The schools had to close etc. So I can only assume it's normal for Thames Water. They did eventually fix the issue as it hadn't happened for a while and we got a hefty bill reduction.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-54443981

It is just a burst pipe not the fucking blitz. Londoners should get a grip.

Hi cdtaylornats, Londoner here and there was no panicking in my neck of the woods. Also you may want to note the outraged OP who started this thread is not a Londoner.

It’s not made the news, because it’s not really newsworthy and the rest of the country is not really interested in what goes on in East London.

When the water companies were privatised, Thames Water inherited a system that was largely Victorian and almost all in need of upgrade (sewage and fresh water, lead pipes in particular). They also inherited every member of staff who used to work in the public entity. It's a bit of a mess and needs more investment, but given that's been the case since the 1980s it isn't news. We had plenty of water outages when I was a child, until the whole system is updated they'll continue.

In other news..my electricity and that of my neighbours was down for a day.

Am I wrong to wonder why this hasn't made the news given that we are in a national pandemic. After all, we were unable to access news sites for important information and, to top it off, we couldn't boil a kettle.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist but given it wasn't on the news and the government have so far remained silent, do you think it is because they know this is a the start of a Zombie Apocalypse?

I'm trembling. So are my neighbours.

More bloody scaremongering. "We're in a pandemic" seems to be the excuse for over-reaction at the moment.

I posted about this last night. Apparently they could get customers in Reading who had no water supplies of bottled water, but they couldn't do the same in East London.

This happens everywhere. Over the last few months it will have happened in various parts of the country and while it is annoying at the time it isn’t really national news. I presume local news sites covered it.

If it is a regular occurrence like some posters have suggested then why is there not a robust short term solution to help people who are affected until the problem gets fixed. They don’t really need to help everyone but protect the vulnerable and housebound.

If they can’t give everyone affected bottled water, then ration it to the vulnerable.

This is bonkers. We had a burst pipe locally recently and were without water for a short while. You look on the local water page and it informs you they are working hard to fix. Why would someone in another part of the UK need to know?

It's an accident, not a conspiracy. No need to start placing blame.

I saw it on the local news last night. It's a burst pipe and will be sorted. Short-term, it's a total pita but not the apocalypse.