Annual hydrant flushing keeps firefighters ready for action

You may have spotted Perry Fire and Emergency Services personnel in your neighborhood recently due to their annual efforts to flush over 1,400 fire hydrants around the city — according to Douglas Kennedy, a Perry firefighter who oversees the hydrant flushing program.

“Basically, all the hydrants have to be flushed every year; that’s every one of them,” Kennedy said. “That’s not just for the fire department’s standpoint; that’s also for the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] and for the water department as well.

“Each hydrant has to be flushed all the way open, run it and clear all the sediment out of the line. We’re ensuring, number one, the hydrant works, and number two, that it’s going to be efficient. Not only that, but as you’re adding water lines and everything, you can keep track of your flows to make sure that if the unfortunate event happens and someone’s house catches on fire — that when you hook up to that hydrant — it’s going to be adequate for you to pump off of.”

Kennedy said the reason the water may come out of a household’s tap discolored in some neighborhoods during flushing is because the whole process is utilizing water from underneath.

“It’s groundwater — it’s coming from the ground,” Kennedy said. “Basically, it’s sand, iron, just sediment from the ground.”

If there are those who see their tap water running discolored, he said that they should just continue to run it for a few minutes or until it runs clear again. The hydrants are crucial to their efforts in responding to fire calls, and even their largest fire engine benefits from the assistance of a hydrant.

“If we were to pull up to a fire — what we would do — our trucks only hold about 700 gallons,” Kennedy said. “Typically, you tell someone 700 gallons, it sounds like a lot, but if your house is on fire, that water is going to go fairly quickly. Take your tower truck, for example. It reaches 100 feet in the air — that’s 100 feet of six-inch pipe — and that truck by itself, I think it’s only got a 500 gallon tank. So by the time you fill that whole ladder up with water, your tank is just about gone.”

He said the majority of the December flushing goal has been met, besides around 40 left.

“I know just about the entirety of Perry for the year [has been flushed],” Kennedy said. “We’ve flushed just about the entire area. We’ve got a couple areas we’re working on right now that’s mainly toward the north end of the North Tucker [Road] area and the North Perry Parkway area.”

The city of Perry features around 1,400 hydrants, and Kennedy said he usually schedules each fire shift to flush anywhere from 100-150 or 300-400 a month. Also, personnel consider November through March as the months for flushing, dedicating April to testing the department’s fire hoses.

Perry residents can keep up with what areas are being flushed by visiting the City of Perry Fire and Emergency Services Facebook page, according to Kennedy.

A post on the page from December 7 stated the neighborhoods to be flushed during December included: Ivey Glen Subdivision, Remington Chase Subdivision, Sugarloaf Subdivision, North Perry Parkway, North Tucker Road Area, Yorktown Subdivision, Legacy Park Subdivision, Woodlands Subdivision, Grand Reserve Subdivision, Idle Pines Subdivision and Old Country Club to Perry Hospital (around Keith Drive).

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