New Phila workers help law director, others with frozen pipes
NEW PHILADELPHIA (WJER) (Jan. 28, 2025) – Law Director Marvin Fete is praising the two city employees who came to the rescue after a pipe burst at his office.
Fete talked about the ordeal during Monday’s city council meeting.
‘“If you remember the episode of The Three Stooges where they were plumbers, that was me. I was in a suit climbing around trying to figure out how to shut this water off, could not get it shut off. It was an old shut-off valve that I could not turn.”
The employees were Reed Anderson and Tim Creighton.
“And I just want to give a shout-out to our service director and the men that are doing this, particularly these two gentlemen individually for what they did for me personally and what I know they’re doing all across our community in these terrible cold weather times. We’re very blessed in our community with the people we’ve got.”
Service Director Ron McAbier says Fete’s call for help was one of 14 the water department received last week.
“We try to go out and help ’em unthaw if they’ve got hair dryers, a heat gun. We try to go in and do some work for them, but again just letting everybody know, it’s not in the service line coming in. It’s definitely in the house or the crawl space.”
Also during last week’s cold spell, city workers had to repair three major water leaks. Two were on the line that supplies water to a grocery store, which McAbier says that’s now on the city’s list of problem areas to address in the future.