Wil they re-paint the fire hydrants around the stadium?

Submitted by snarling wolverine on

Until recently, the hydrants around the stadium used to be painted like our football helmets, and three had the numbers of our Heisman winners (2, 21, 98).  (The Woodson one was right in front of the main entrance.)  Now for whatever reason the hydrants have been painted over.  Anyone know why that was, and if they might bring back the old paint job?

(I know, it's not the most pressing concern, but I liked the old look.)

 

Bando Calrissian

August 19th, 2014 at 9:42 PM ^

They were painted by art school students, a friend of mine painted one of them ~2005 when they were repainted the last time. They got free rein to do whatever they wanted, football themed. Wouldn't be surprised if that didn't happen again, though...

Red_Lee

August 19th, 2014 at 8:42 PM ^

If the standard code is adopted, hydrants are supposed to be painted based on the gallons-per-minute flow available at the hydrant (red, orange, green, blue - blue being highest flow of 1500+ gpm). However, I know many areas around my department that don't follow this standard.

So yeah, I guess that was useless trivia.

WFDEric

August 19th, 2014 at 9:15 PM ^

If the A2 FD is trying to increase their ISO (insurance) rating the hydrants would need to be painted accordingly. Once the FD has been given their rating they could then be repainted to look like the helmets.  ISO offical ratings are updated every 15 years at which time they would have to put them back to the IFSTA color coded system again.

It's nothing more than a big dog and pony show that helps home and business owners save money on taxes because of the ISO rating.

JamieH

August 20th, 2014 at 1:44 PM ^

pretty much ALL of those certifications and standards.  They are ALL giant dog and pony shows that do pretty much nothing but make a bunch of consultants a crap load of money.  I know I'll probably tick off some consultants who make their money selling the dog and pony show to people, but for the most part, all those standards do is cause people to spend all of their time focusing on some BS standards forms, documents and procedures instead of actually doing their REAL jobs.

I will say the one exception might be large-scale manufacturing, where you have to have some massively small failure rate in order to maintain profitability.   I can see needing to implement mega-procedures in that situation.  But when I seen small companies that half the time can't even figure out what they want to do next spending $$$$$ on consultants to implement the latest and greatest buzzword bingo standards/procedures, I just shake my head.

Not that I blame the AAFD.  They probably have to do this to get some sort of state/government funding. 

 

M-Dog

August 20th, 2014 at 9:29 AM ^

It's gonna suck for all of us when you get a job in the real world and can't post as much as you do now.

C'mon, MGoBlog, I know there are some big money people out there.  One of you needs to adopt WD as a pet so he can keep posting on the Blog like a student forever.

 

Don

August 19th, 2014 at 9:11 PM ^

for the Penn State game. All yellow, with blue wings and helmet stripes, with reflective strips around the plugs. The old fogeys bitch and moan, but the kids and recruits love 'em. They can paint 'em pink and put tu-tus on them for all I care as long as they spew water at the appropriate rate.

BlueinLansing

August 19th, 2014 at 10:02 PM ^

a time my hometown let the resident paint all the hydrants anything they wanted.  Being a kid, my favorite was snoopy.

 

I think it was around the Bi-centenial, 1976, lots of red, white and blue ones.

M-Dog

August 20th, 2014 at 9:45 AM ^

I had not been back to Ann Arbor for a decade (wife, kids, job, etc.), but I finally got to go back a few years ago.  It was like I was seeing it for the first time, like a recruit would.

I was very impressed with the winged helmet fire hydrants.  I thought "Man, that's an elite program that has its act together to pay attention to little details like that."

Any teenage recruit is going to be impressed with something like that.