since all the town's utilities are across the river from most of the population, there has been a change in the normal functioning of town so that we can all still have water and so on. the old way was trucks bringing water from the reservoir directly to our tanks, and the opposite for sewage removal (to the sewage treatment plant). the new way is that a few stranded water trucks bring water to the bridge, pump it through a hose to the trucks waiting on the other side of the bridge. sort of a bucket brigade. i'm not sure yet if they are doing sewer the same way... but i hope they are! i heard that if things get desperate they might seek permission to dump the sewage directly in the fjord. :( that would really suck.
a view of the previously-hidden supports for the old bridge. the water used to come up past the bottom of those caged rocks, but the riverbed has dropped something like 15 or 20 feet. through the permafrost. this is what has prompted my theory that global warming is behind this small disaster. permafrost shouldn't suddenly succumb to a small river that's flowed over it for thousands of years.
this side of the old bridge. it's much more dramatic from the other side. i wish i had taken my camera on my run last night because sadly even the new bridge is closed to all traffic - even pedestrian. i'll see if i can find someone else who has a pic from that side.
that's not an optical illusion - the right side of the bridge is significantly lower than the left. didn't used to be that way.
here you can see the reason that the new bridge is also closed. see how the supports are sitting on air? this is a questionable engineering technique.
finally, wherever there are qallunaat with cameras, there are kids to show off. these two kids were pretty keen to show me how cool they are on their bikes.
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