Yep. For my 2010 book On the Grid, I studied all the infrastructure systems that support my house in Five Points, in Raleigh. Electricity, gas, cable, broadcast signals, roads, trash pickup, water, wastewater, stormwater. All these systems make our lives possible, and we mostly ignore them.
In order to help people pay attention to them, I started walking people around and showing thing things. Did you know there's an order to what goes where on a utility pole? Did you know you can read and understand those strange spraypainted hieroglyphics that show up on your street when someone's going to dig? And did you know you can follow the creek that your stormwater flows into from its source to the ocean? This tour follows the Pigeon House Branch creek, the ruined little watershed into which the water from Raleigh's downtown streets drains. It's just stormwater, not poop or sewage. But stormwater needs to drain, so as the city built over it, it had to put the creek in culverts and drainages. We will walk from the creek's emergence from those drainages at Peace Street near West upstream to its source at Cameron Village. It'll be dark and cool and sometimes low, so you need to wear a hardhat and stuff (see below). But it's big fun. IMPORTANT STUFF below the book. KEEP READING. |
On the Grid
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IMPORTANT: How this will work.
This isn't a walk in the park. It's safe, but you'll need a hard hat and a headlamp and gloves. And you will need to plan on getting wet. None of those are negotiable. If you don't want to buy (or don't already have) a hard hat, to wear gloves, and to use a headlamp, DON'T SIGN UP. And I suppose you might want to wear waders that go up to your chest, but most people just wear old jeans and old sneakers and get wet, usually for at least a moment above the knee. Also you'd better be 18, because obviously.
I cannot stress this enough.
We will walk in tunnels underground, some of them low. Hard hat: non-negotiable. We will splash through the low flow of the tiny Pigeon House Branch as it flows beneath Raleigh, so YOU WILL GET WET. We will be underground, so flashlight/headlamp: non-negotiable. And we will be scrabbling around hither and yon, pulling ourselves up out of ditches and such. Garden gloves: non-negotiable. Also I will have you sign a release that says you know you are going underground and if you slip or konk your head or are harmed in any way it's just what you should have expected and it's not my fault or the city's fault or the fault of the NC Book Festival. Most important, If it even LOOKS LIKE RAIN, we'll stay above ground. Water builds up fast and even a drizzle makes stormwater ravines and tunnels rage and they become unsafe instantly. So if it rains we'll look underground, but we'll stay above. Unless you're willing to sign the release, DON'T SIGN UP. But if you're willing to accept these sensible caveats, you should come. It's fun as hell. Check out the video if you don't believe me.