Everybody was home. Grandma, babies, mom, dad, everybody was home. But somehow, they worked with us. I'm John Torrick, and I'm Danny Sullivan. And you're listening to Speaking of Design, Bringing you the stories of the engineers and architects who are transforming the world one project at a time. When construction comes to your street for a water main replacement, the technical side is only half the challenge.
Today, we'll meet the people responsible for communicating with residents during construction in New York City. Their work took on added significance during COVID nineteen as they initiated a multi language public outreach plan for a predominantly Chinese speaking community. My equation is, timely and clear communication equals no surprises. And throughout my entire career, you inform the community in advance. You keep them constantly abreast of what's going on, and you're just
being totally honest with them. Nine times out of 10, the community will be very receptive on what you're doing. That's Steve Scaglione, a construction services manager in HDR's Manhattan office. Steve's direct tell it like it is approach feels like it's one part the New Yorker in him, one part the engineer in him, and a hint of his twenty eight years of military service. Well, to be honest with you, my father did not finish engineering school, and he wanted me to become a civil engineer
locations within the the borough of Brooklyn. So what does replacing a water main entail? Each street's kinda little different as far as the extent. Usually, you you try to go street by street. You don't wanna tear up four or five streets at one time. They do it in segments. It's a block in length, which is probably maybe 200 feet that they'll try to do at a time where they'll rip out the old water main, put the new one in. When you're gonna dig and close lanes of traffic,
the project becomes a larger coordination effort. Utility companies are sometimes heavily involved on some of these projects, especially if the water main has to be realigned and there's some underground utilities in a way. So we're always coordinating with the utility companies.
Traffic, you have to make sure that if you're closing that particular street or especially going through an intersection intersections are very, very complicated in a sense that while you're in an intersection, you're actually affecting several streets. They also need to think about what type of vehicles need to travel down each street. Let's say, for example, if a bus goes down that street, we have to contact the MTA buses so they could reroute the bus if the bus cannot get down that street.
At the same time, we are always very cognizant that we have to have access down the street for any fire trucks or EMS or police emergency vehicles. On top of the open trench for construction, the contractor also needs space to stage equipment
and materials. Normally, nine times out of 10, the parking lanes will be taken up, and that's for so the construction contractor to use those parking lanes for for both material storage, temporary storage of their pipe, the new pipe that they're gonna lay into that particular street, and also for their construction equipment. Then there's
also the community aspect. Beyond a closed lane in the street and the inconvenience of construction, the replacement involves an even more direct impact on people's lives, turning off their water. Depending where the water main is and what it services, there could be residential homes. There could be essential facilities like hospitals,
dialysis centers. There could be areas of commercial use of, laundry mats, car washes, large list of users of the water that are important that we have to coordinate with is when we have to do, shutdowns of when we're tying in the new water
main sections into the existing water main. With the number of businesses and residents impacted by that type of project, the New York City Department of Design and Construction, which oversees construction for the Department of Environmental Protection, realized they needed to regularly have an additional team member. So it evolved now that on our staff, we have a person that's trained in that, and they're part of our staff.
They call it a CCL or construction community liaison, and they're on all of our inspection staffs. And what they do is they're out there every day within the communities and whatever streets they get affected. Let's say they're replacing a water main in a certain street. They've gotta do a shutdown. They'll coordinate seventy two hours in advance, letting every single person that's affected by the water shutdown that are gonna be shut down, and then they follow-up with the turn on.
It's very critical. Enter Paul So and Carol Nurse. My name is Paul So. I am the resident engineer on the current EDC water main project. I'm Carol Nurse. I'm the community construction liaison on the accelerated distribution water main replacement and sewer rehabilitation project. I presently work for CES Engineers, which is the subcontractor to HDR. Paul's role involves a lot of management and coordination in the field, where he enjoys seeing projects like this one
become a reality. The most basic scope of work is really just to replace the century old existing water main system in areas that were deemed by the DEP as high priority. So a lot of the pipe that we're taking out of the ground, if you look at the map, it shows nineteen hundreds. We haven't even come across pipes in the late eighteen hundreds. So you were basically replacing these pipes that have been serving the communities for
well over a hundred years. And we basically take out the old one, put in the new one. Which, of course, includes more than just swapping out one giant pipe. In doing that, we also have to reconnect to everyone else's services. We have to put in new hydrants, any sprinkler connections. If it's a larger facility, we have to reconnect those. I mean, that's kind of the
meat and potatoes of the project. As community liaison, Carol's role involves establishing relationships with the community being impacted by the project. You can hear in her voice how seriously she takes that role, which she said begins with getting to know the technical side of the job. I tend to hang around the work crew. I ask lots of questions because when I've got to answer questions or concerns to the community, I have got to give them the right
answers. So if I don't know if someone asked me people walk up to me in the street, what are you doing? If I don't know what I'm talking about, I don't need to be on the job. To kick off the Watermain project in Brooklyn, Carol started identifying leaders in the community. Before I start a project, I have got to set up a spreadsheet, make a database of every politician, every school, every municipal group in the area. So before the project
starts, we have a progress meeting. At the progress meeting, I affiliate myself with everyone from these different agencies and businesses and so forth. Making connections through different groups and organizations helps to spread the word throughout the community using existing relationships. It can also create partners and sometimes advocates. So what I usually do is instead of trying to reach out to everyone, I try to get hold of one person. I try to have a close relationship with
them. I keep them abreast of what's going on. So if there's gonna be a problem, they, in turn, will talk to people in their area, and they will get back to me. Every resident in the area have got my phone number. So if there's an issue, they will reach out to me. In addition to reaching out through civic organizations, Carol applies that approach to businesses. So I may tell a business, for instance, let's say, the hospital, that your water main shutdown, which we usually do every day, might
last eight hours. It may not. So they've got to trust me and the contractor with whatever information that we give to them. And I tend to trust them because I need for them to put out the right information. If it's a school, the hospital, the politician, or whatever. Keeping everyone on the same page, letting everyone know what to expect, and kind of keeping close look on when their water is gonna be affected, when their parking is
gonna be affected, and issues like that. The nature of the impact on businesses changed as the project moved into 2020 as COVID nineteen altered the world in early March. In the very beginning, COVID, it made construction itself easier because there's less traffic on the street. And when there's less traffic, the contractor their productivity just increases just because the streets are empty. However, that also meant that more residents were home during construction.
When the COVID started, we originally started out in kind of like an industrial area. As we progressed, we went into a predominantly residential area. So Paul, the city, the contractor, and I got our heads together and they decided to do a survey. The survey entailed of me knocking on every single door even if it's a building, because they are large buildings in New York City, especially in Brooklyn.
So what I was responsible to do was knock every single door and ask the homeowner if you were okay with the shutdown. And if the answer was yes, how long do you think you'll be able to work with this shutdown? Do you have any elderly people in the home? Do you have any babies? Are there anyone that requires water during the course of the day? The team also took actions to help address residents' legitimate concerns about their water being shut off.
One of the bigger challenges that Carol and I had to deal with was when we go into a neighborhood and we say, hey, by the way, we're coming to the neighborhood. This is what's gonna happen. This is what to expect. One of the responses was, well, how come you're gonna shut off our water during the pandemic? And we need water to wash our hands, and now we're home, and things like that. Carol said clear, honest communication about the purpose of the project was
critical. I will explain to them, it's better to have a scheduled shutdown than to have a water main break. And we've had a few the past few months in New York City in Brooklyn, and it could be catastrophic. We tell the residences that this has worked for the city. It's to improve the infrastructure
in your neighborhood. Your pipes are so old so that what could really happen is if we don't fix it now, you could get a water main break because these pipes are cast iron, which just means that they're very brittle after all this time. So if you get a water main break, DEP is coming down to shut off your water anyway. You won't be notified, and it it will take longer than the few days that we're gonna
take. The team also took actions to help address residents' legitimate concerns about their water being shut off. So one of the ways we dealt with that was in the neighborhood with a lot of residents, we would set up, water stations outside. We would set up hand sanitizing stations. Scheduling also helped lessen the inconvenience.
We try to schedule the work. We try to start earlier and end earlier rather than start later and end later because we know that getting a earlier start on the day just helps with the productivity, and most people don't necessarily get up as early. So they would rather see the water on early afternoon rather than, say, mid afternoon. Each time the water was turned back on, Carol would continue her personal communication with each resident. The water is turned back
on. There's a resumption notice that we would put on the doors. If I knock on the doors, that's also part of the process. When the water is turned back on at the end of the day, I knock on every single person's door to let them know that the water is back on. If they do not answer the door, I would stick a note on the door letting them know the water was restored at this time. Please check to make sure that the water is flowing properly.
If it's not, reach out to me. Carol was ready to take those calls no matter what time of day. As soon as I get the call, what I usually do, if I have got the answer, I will deal with it immediately. If I don't have the answer, I will call Paul, then I'll reach out to the contractor, and we'll put our minds together. And I will make sure I will reassure that person that you're not alone. We're with you. Hold tight. We will like, the father's problem. Carol's empathy was apparent as she
talked about vulnerable members of the community. I make sure, especially the elderly people, are aware of exactly what's going on, and I make sure that I let them know that we will not leave you without water. If your water is brown and dirty, call me. I don't care what time of the night it is. I will tell you exactly what you can do or how we can fix it somehow. But there was one more wrinkle.
In addition to having hundreds of people to reach and the elevated importance of communication particular community, they spoke Chinese. So what we did was three quarters of our notices, like the notices for the shutdown. We translated it in English and Chinese. If someone is not at home and let's say there's a building and you cannot get into the building where there is, like, 50 different tenants, how would you be able to let them know what's going on?
If you do have paperwork or something in writing that you can paste on the wall or somewhere, you'll be able to have that information passed on. So sometimes, not only speaking the language helps, having it written helps. Paul and his wife, Agnes, helped with translation. The most common dialects in Brooklyn are Cantonese and Mandarin. I speak Mandarin. My wife speaks Cantonese. Which helped with fielding phone calls from
the community too. If they will call and I don't understand what they're saying, I would basically tell them, I will call back. I will call back, and I will call Paul. And I will let Paul know I've got a resident, does not speak English well, had issues, concerns, or something, and I need your assistance to help me to translate what they're saying. So Paul will call them right away, and that's how we dealt with
it. So if there was something that I couldn't help with, I would just have to let them know that I would either call them back and ask my wife to help. Or if I was at home, if it was like an after hours call, I would just kinda hand the phone to my wife. Both over the phone and in person, Paul said he noticed the difference it made to communicate with the community in their native
language. You can kinda tell their body language and their tone of voice from their responses that it definitely helped to bring the communication in their native tongue. So a lot of times, I would check with them if, oh, do you speak English or do you speak Chinese? And sometimes they'll say, you know, I speak a little English, but mostly Chinese. And then if that's the case, I would do my best to communicate. Sometimes I go half and half, partial English, partial Chinese. It's just
kind of a case by case basis. Carroll said the effort did more than simply improve communication. They felt like they weren't pushed to the side. They felt like, listen, we are part of this also, especially older ones that didn't speak the language when they did see me, they would give me the bow, like, thank you. Thank you, miss
Carol. Thank you. I knew in my heart that they didn't feel like we had just barged into the neighborhood, dug up the streets, shut off the water, and had no no remorse for everyone in the area. They felt like this is our neighborhood. We pay our taxes here, and they included us in what was going on. And talking to Carol, it's clear how much the work means to her. It warms my heart when the neighbors and the businesses come out and say thank you guys. You guys have done an
excellent job. We know that we were shut down for a little while, but it was for a worthy cause. And they write letters, which is a beautiful thing. And we have got so much great feedback that it makes me feel like it's worth doing this job. Because if someone comes into my neighborhood, I would want someone to be able to explain to me why they're doing what they're doing, respect that this home belongs to me, and to do it in a decent fashion.
So when I get a well done or a smile or would you guys like a drink of water? I know we're doing something great. For more information on this podcast, visit hdrinc.com/speakingofdesign. You'll find links to pictures, articles, and more information about this project. If you like what you heard, be sure to rate us or leave feedback on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.