It's been said that what goes up must come down.
It's also been said that what goes in must come out.
Looking for the part where it says Jones craps his pants.
Personally, I prefer to say get ready to get dirty.
Like most dirty jobs, this one started off with a simple plan.
A plan to perform some routine maintenance on another piece of critical infrastructure
here in small town America.
It's easy to take for granted just how closely water towers are connected to
everyday life. Every time you turn on your faucet, your shower.
Your garden hose. That flow of life giving H2O is likely coming from a water tower near
you. Today I've come to Magee, Mississippi, to clean their water tower.
That's our water tower.
Currently, we're getting all the water out of it, and the second it's out, we are going
up there to clean what can only be described as a god awful mess.
That's what's waiting for me and you up there.
As soon as all this water gets out.
Won't be but a moment.
While the tank drains, I take a moment to meet the guys I'll be working with today.
Lance George?
Yes, sir. Who's in charge?
Or is this one big team?
That's you, George. So what exactly is the job?
Climb it, Clean it.
Come down. Yeah.
You guys all work for the county, I guess.
Or the city or. We're from.
North Carolina.
Well, what are you doing here?
They're the ones that got us to do it.
You do this all over the country?
Yeah.
I see. So you guys are the team that goes around the country cleaning these things,
right? All right.
Now it makes sense.
In other words, there's a reasonable chance that these guys have cleaned your water
tower. How long you been doing this, George?
33 years.
33? Yeah.
Is that it? That's all.
Still trying it on, seeing how it feels.
Getting too old.
And this is your go to crew, You guys.
You travel 14 hours from North Carolina to here.
All right, well, let's make it a good one.
Okay.
All right. Let's get this pressure washer.
Come on, Mike.
Ironically, while we wait for the tank to drain, we need to identify a water source to
effectuate the aforementioned cleaning of the aforementioned tower.
Now we gotta get all the water hoses.
Then we need to attach a power washer to that water source in order to blast the
aforementioned grime with the aforementioned power washer.
Whenever I approach a ladder more than two storeys tall, I walk in slow motion.
It's a sign of respect.
Oh, yeah. There it is.
It's got to be a better way.
You know what you're doing, Zack.
You tie it off. According to Taylor's plan, I go next, George follows me, and Zack
follows George.
Don't you love it when a plan comes together?
All right.
Makes you think about a diet, doesn't it?
Don't look down, Zac.
Well, about halfway up the ladder right now.
There's George and.
Zach's just getting started.
That's where we're headed.
Zach?
Zach. Ignoring me? Can he not hear me?
Is he still behind me?
Guess I'll have to wait and see.
Home stretch. Yes.
Welcome to the top.
Well, thank you. Nice to be here.
What a great office you got here.
This is.
Awesome.
I love this. Never gets old.
In the last couple of years, how many times have you looked around and said, I'm getting
too old for this?
Every day.
He's nimble, but it'll be curious to see how he handles this.
Forearms got to be killing him.
Dirty jobs, they said.
Yeah. It's going to be great.
It'd be fun.
Right. This was the moment we were we were warning you about.
There it is. There you go.
Oh.
We're going to grab this gun.
You good? No, it's very tight.
Yeah.
Nice little arm workout.
Sure, you can hire a personal trainer.
Or you could just hang out with Lance and pull a £100 pressure washer up a 20 story
water tower. This is like one of those stupid exercises and one of those stupid
gyms.
You see those stupid people pulling on them stupid ropes?
Can you feel the burn?
Almost. Hold on one second.
Hell yeah.
We still got to go up it.
Go up. One more ladder.
All right.
You know what's more exciting than climbing a 200 foot ladder?
A 25 foot ladder with a big bend in it.
Yeah. Crooked ladders are awesome.
Water towers are tall so they can provide water pressure.
Each foot of height ups the pressure by nearly half a pound per square inch.
Well, there goes George.
Into the hatch. I'm going to go ahead and get the hatch now.
At long last, we finally enter the place of work.
Whoa. This is interesting.
Here we find the natural sediment that accumulates in every water tank.
Obviously, cleaning is essential and is performed once every three years.
Hey, George.
This is a this is a really unique environment.
It's the first time I've seen your eyes.
Yeah.
Pretty hazel.
You're a handsome man.
Yeah. Thanks. What's this, George?
That's the float that tells you how much water is in here.
So this was the thing we've been looking at all morning.
Yeah.
It actually should be some further down, But it won't.
But it won't. Somebody must have put it that way, I guess.
Right.
It stopped here even though the water was down here, so we just didn't know.
Zach Are you comfortable, sweetheart?
That's the riser we were looking up.
That is a long way down the.
We're getting all that out.
Yeah. Fortunately for us, we've got the right tool for the job.
A tool that provides pressure.
Lots and lots of pressure.
See what I just did? I got this.
Say hello to my little friend.
Like the dead skin being slowly peeled off a sunburned back.
The tower sheds its layer of filth with a little coaxing from the pressure washer,
sending up a blast of H2O from 20 stories below.
A pump at the bottom will refill the tank.
Then it's up to gravity to push the water to the faucets of the good people of McGee.
Work our way around? Yep.
Getting all the way down to the middle.
And that's it.
This is. I got to be honest, it wasn't easy getting here seven.
Hours to get to this.
But once you get here.
It's a dream. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Is a dream. All right.
Again, there are literally tens of thousands of water towers all over America.
Some are taller than others and some are cleaner than others.
Oh, yeah, This is happening.
This one actually is in pretty good shape.
But like anything else, pretty good is relative.
Your eyes are hazel.
They match your shirt and your hat.
Unless you're wearing contacts, in which case, if you're wearing colored contacts.
I'm just going home now.
I don't wear any contacts.
I'm not wearing any underwear.
Actually, that's not true.
I'm wearing two pair of underwear because I don't take chances with other people's water.
And that's the point.
Towers like this hold the water we use to drink, cook and bathe.
If guys like George and his merry band of high wire maintenance men don't show up for
work, you and I and millions of other Americans are going to have a problem.
And you know when you're done.
When it's clean. A big, dirty problem.
Something to think about.
Next time you drive by a water tower and wonder what goes on up there.