S.O.S

On Wednesday, with temps at 90, and just finishing clean-up of aerification. A superintendents worst nightmare graced our course.

I was on the mound between 2 fairway and 17 tee running heads on fairways to cool them down in 90 degree temperatures. My assistants were hand-watering greens and approaches when I saw something with the water pressure I don't ever want to see. The heads on 2 started dropping, I looked over to 14 fairway to see the same thing occurring and then had a sickening feeling come across me. I ran to the pumphouse as fast as I could to see the pressure was at 0 and all the red fault lights on. "No this can't seriously be happening" was the first thing that popped into my head.
After quickly hitting the reset buttons and nothing changing I contacted Atlantic Irrigation. We worked through the many faults on the screen and same result, no pumping. I was instructed to open the cabinet to the main control unit and my heart sank. Smoke and burnt plastic was the first thing that hit my nose.
I met up with my assistants shortly after and instructed them to get back to the shop and fill up our sprayers.

 We had no water.

SO FRIED. This module 1 is connected to pump 2 which was damaged as well.

 
I immediately contacted Brandon to inform him of the situation and asked if he could run to Total rental and get me a 2" trash pump.

As Dave and Jim worked around the course with the sprayers, Brandon showed up with the pump. After a few adapters we were able to attach the pump directly to the outflow line. This would give us enough pressure to run 2 hoses. It was something. It had to be good enough for now.
We wrapped up a little before 8:00 and the greens were doing ok.

From 140 hp 1100 gpm to this feeding miles of pipes

I asked for the course to be closed on Thursday so that we could get water anywhere we could without
interruption.  When the guys arrived Thursday they were informed of what had happened and were instructed to get all equipment that could carry water. Keep it alive was the last thing mentioned.
We had sprayers, a hydro-seeder, and a few hoses to keep it going.

Kevin filling the hydro-seeder to hit tees.

After a day of no sleep and waiting with little patience left I got the call I was frantically waiting for. They found the parts and they will be overnighted and installed ASAP.
The pump station should be operational by this afternoon and we can begin the catch-up.

I'm very lucky for an outstanding staff who kept it together and worked tirelessly to keep things moving in the right direction. I'm also sorry for the inconvenience but thankful for the membership being very supportive while we worked to get this issue under control.