Well, lookee here. The river done blowed up:

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ–A gas pipeline owned by PSE&G ruptured today under the Raritan River, causing two geysers of natural gas to erupt near the Northeast Corridor rail bridge.

The ruptured line has sent strong odors of natural gas wafting through the area, with complaints of the smell coming from as far away as Highland Park High School.

I stayed home from work this morning because I am currently arthritis’ bitch and pools of slush froze everywhere overnight. Skating rinks are not for creaky me. Thus, I was surprised when Pete told me a pipe under the river broke and the sleepy, ice-clogged Raritan was bubbling up like Old Faithful. But wait! The article includes video!

Bless my buttons, that is the train bridge for the Northeast Corridor train and the video is taken from the bridge Pete and I bicycle across on our way to the library. The bridges do not feel like they are far apart and they aren’t, probably about one-third of a mile at most. The high school mentioned in the article is less than a mile away.

New Brunswick and Highland Park took decent beatings during Hurricane Sandy, the hurricane before Sandy and a good handful of storms since. We had two water main breaks recently, then a lengthy power outage problem after a couple of substation fires. We have the totally unneeded but not unexpected problem of Chris Christie’s corrupt business practices laid at our doorstep and now the Raritan’s a geyser. We can’t afford those natural gas pipelines across the state the Powers That Be propose because they don’t take care of them and shit happens. I, for one, am finding infrastructure investment increasingly meow-meow sexy.