The Electric Mayhem? or Broom Operator

We heard another station go out on a call for an alarm sounding at our local Chuck E. Cheese's. As one of the two trucks in our battalion we were also assigned. En route the other captain gave an update that they had what appeared to be a sheared hydrant on the backside of the building. We arrived and I drove around back and we met up with the other crew's captain. We could see a jet of water shooting out of the drain on the back wall of the restaurant. It was really coming out, enough so that it looked like it was under pressure.

We were assigned to grab however many salvage covers we could get and to go inside and "protect the band". If you haven't been to one, Chuck E. Cheese has an animatronic band of fuzzy stuffed creatures that plays repeatedly to the kid's amusement and the parent's chagrin.

As you can probably guess, fuzzy and electric doesn't mix well with water and it was pretty much raining inside the building right over the band. We hopped up on stage and started throwing salvage covers over them. The water was really only coming down on one half of the stage so we were able to quickly get the creatures tucked in safe and dry. The rest of our time was spent moving all the tables, benches, and booths from the main dining area and attempting to push all the water outside with broom handled squeegees. It is amazing how much water even the thinnest of rugs can absorb. We were there for awhile.

It turns out that the FDC (Fire Department Connection -that thing you see on posts outside or attached to the walls of buildings that allow us to augment the sprinkler system or the standpipe) had failed somehow.

I still don't know how as the threads on the pipe and on the fitting were intact and undamaged. It looked as if a giant had come along and just unscrewed it. Well, there was enough pressure in that pipe to shoot a geyser up about twenty feet up onto the roof and turn that roof (surrounded by a parapet) into a monstrous bathtub. That's why the water was jetting out of the drain so hard, it had twenty feet of head pressure and must have been about 3-4 feet deep across most of their roof. Which also explains why it was raining inside.

It will take an actual salvage company to deal with the water damage and restore the place to normal and, in the end, the rug may have to come up. I really don't know who you call to clean and fluff your giant singing electric rat.