We spend a fair amount of time in our seminars talking about how best to use apparatus coming to your water supply operation. Folks are generally most familiar with the mutual aid rigs that they commonly run with. It is that once-every-couple years, large-scale tanker shuttle operation where folks can encounter water haulers with which they are unfamiliar. We always say that "you get a pass" the first time you encounter an unfamiliar rig. However, if the rig requires something a bit different to load or off-load it then you need to be prepared for the second time it arrives at your location.

Plenty of fire departments are still running older water haulers. These photos from our seminar 12 years ago in Illinois show an older rig in use hauling water for the drill. Compared to the other tankers hauling water that day it was a bit different in how it loaded and how it dumped. No problem...the fill site crew figured out how best to load the tanker (out of the way of others) and the dump site crew figured out to best dump it (go past and back up). After the first sighting of the tanker at both ends of the water shuttle operation, things worked out just fine. Be ready!