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Who sees the water at four in the morning?

By the time anyone sees it, it has been in for hours

Four in the morning in a plant room. A thin jet drips from a downpipe running against the column, and a sheet of water is already spreading across the tiles towards the raised-floor grilles. On one side of the aisle sit the cooling units; on the other, the cabinets. Nobody sets foot on the floor until seven. The aisle camera has been recording that puddle since it was the size of a sheet of paper.

11 cameras across 4 sectors

This is how you ask for it

«Tell me if water shows up on the floor of any plant room, however little, and say which aisle.»

Water makes no noise and trips nothing until it touches something. By the time someone walks in at seven it has been running for three hours and has already reached under the raised floor, which is exactly where everything that must not get wet is routed. From then on you are not paying for the leak: you are paying for the pump-out, the shutdown, the equipment that has to be replaced and a whole day spent explaining it. And the video shows the first trickle at seven minutes past four.

You decide once

You decide this once. You say in which rooms the floor must always be dry, how large a sheet of water has to be to count, what hours it applies and who gets told: if water shows up on the floor of a plant room, alert maintenance with the camera, the aisle and the time, whatever the hour. IRIS checks that around the clock on every camera in those rooms. Nobody has to remember to go down and look before going home.

Water always comes in where nobody is looking. A joint that gives, a downpipe that blocks, a manhole cover lifted by the storm, a gate left open on a bad night. And it does something fire never does: it advances slowly and in silence. A fire announces itself; a leak has to be discovered. That is why almost every flood that wrecks a facility began as a trickle that sat for hours in front of a camera.

The places change and the pattern does not. The pump room of a water plant at five in the morning, water covering the whole floor with the motor plinths as the last dry step. An underground chamber with two crews inside and water pouring in through the opening in the far wall. All of them have cameras. In almost all of them, the warning arrived by phone.

What IRIS does is watch the floor. It checks whether there is a sheet of water where the floor must be dry, says which aisle and since what time, and speaks up again if the water reaches a height you marked beforehand on the image itself: the plinths, the kerb wall, the gauge. It also says how many people are inside at that moment, which in an underground chamber is the first question anyone asks. Then a person decides, because a person is the one who can stop a pump or order someone out.

What changes

Before, you found out in one of two ways: someone went down and saw it, or something tripped that was already wet. Between those two lay hours. Now, while the puddle still fits on a single tile, someone gets the camera open with the aisle and the time, decides whether to go down, and often goes down with a spanner instead of a pump. The difference between those two tools is three hours of water.

Where we have seen it

  • Four in the morning. A thin jet of water is falling from a downpipe running beside the pillar, and there is already a sheet of it spreading over the floor tiles. On one side of the aisle stand the cooling units; on the other, the row of cabinets and the grilles the air comes up through. A technician is standing a few metres away, checking something, and has not seen it yet. IRIS sees the shine of water on the floor, how much the patch has grown in the last few minutes and how far it is from the nearest grille.

    CAM-557Water falling in the aisle and creeping towards the floor grilles

    «Tell me if water shows up on the floor of any plant room, even a little, and tell me which aisle.»

    See this camera →Data centres

  • The river is running high and brown, almost level with the top of the wall. Along the riverside walk a long line of people is leaning on the railing to watch it, and on the bridge the parapet is taken from one end to the other. More keep arriving along the walk. IRIS counts how many people there are against the railing and how much freeboard is left between the water and the top of the wall; it does not know who any of them are.

    CAM-177A crowd out to watch the flood

    «Tell me when too many people gather against the walkway railing with the river up, and tell me while they are still gathering.»

    See this camera →Critical infrastructure

  • Early afternoon, right outside the pumping station. Murky water is surging up through a shifted manhole cover and covering half the roadway. A vacuum tanker is parked with its hose already run out and three crew members are working around it. Two yellow barriers and a few cones close off the street. On the kerb, a metre from the water, a couple stands watching. By the time somebody phones it in, the pool has been growing for a long while.

    CAM-400Water is coming up through the cover and the street is a river

    «Tell me if water comes up through a manhole or a cover and spreads across the street.»

    See this camera →Industry

  • A storm, late in the afternoon. Water is pouring in through the open gate and already covers all the gravel in the yard. A worker in a raincoat and helmet is wading across, water up to his knees. The level is read against something that is always there: the stone courses of the low wall. Four are under water now; half an hour ago it was two. It is not an estimate, it is a reading, and you can see it in the picture.

    CAM-349Water is coming in through the gate and still rising

    «Tell me the moment water gets inside the compound, and keep telling me how many courses of the low wall it has covered.»

    See this camera →Industry

  • An underground pumping station in the small hours, lit by the emergency lamps. The two pump sets sit still on their concrete plinths and the murky water already covers them, with litter floating on top. On the left-hand wall there is a red and white gauge with its lower marks under water; on the right, the screened outlet. Nobody is there. IRIS sees a flooded room and water that is not moving; it does not know whether the pumps are running.

    CAM-168Water above the pumps

    «Tell me if the water in the pumping station goes above the plinths and just stays there without dropping.»

    See this camera →Critical infrastructure

  • Five in the morning in the pump room. Water has come in and covers the whole floor: the plinths of the two blue motors still show above it, and that is the only thing keeping them out of the water. It is still rising, and it already licks the foot of the electrical cabinets on the right-hand wall. A worker in a hard hat and hi-vis stops in the doorway, water halfway up his calf. The wet floor sign is still standing in the middle of it.

    CAM-415The water covers the whole floor and is climbing towards the switchboard

    «Tell me as soon as there is water on the floor of the pump room, and again if it reaches the height of the motor plinths.»

    See this camera →Industry

  • An urban storm tank, sunk below the square and open at the top, seen from the edge. Water is still coming in through the three pipes in the left-hand wall and the basin is nearly full: the red and white gauge bolted to the far wall already has its lower marks under water. Up above, the street carries on with its cars and its flower pots. IRIS reads how high the water reaches on that gauge; it does not know who walks past up there and it is not looking.

    CAM-165The storm tank close to the brim

    «Tell me when the water in the tank goes over the alert mark on the gauge and keeps rising, even at four in the morning with nobody in the office.»

    See this camera →Critical infrastructure

  • An underground chamber of the network, with water pouring through the opening in the far wall and falling in a curtain onto the floor. Two workers in helmets and hi-vis are standing in the middle, water up to their calves, and on the stairs to the left the water is already running down the steps. Up on the walkway there are three people watching. IRIS sees water coming in where it should not and people inside; it does not know who any of them are.

    CAM-166Water pouring into the underground chamber

    «Alert me the moment water comes in through the chamber opening, and tell me how many people are inside right then.»

    See this camera →Critical infrastructure

  • A vaulted drainage tunnel, with a blue band painted along the walls. Water has built up on the invert and two workers in helmets and hi-vis are wading through it, ankle-deep. On the right, a jet comes in through the wall and falls onto the ledge. On the left, the run of pipes and a red valve. IRIS reads how far the water still is from the painted band and how many people are inside; it does not know who any of them are.

    CAM-172Water building up in the tunnel

    «Tell me if water builds up on the tunnel invert while there are people inside, and tell me how far it still is from the painted band.»

    See this camera →Critical infrastructure

  • Night, after hours of rain. The water is coming down brown and foaming through the lined channel and has covered almost the whole flight of access steps: three treads are still above it. On the wet walkway a small group stands watching, and more people lean over from the bridge. IRIS reads how high the water stands against the stone treads, which have been there for as long as anyone remembers and do not move.

    CAM-175The water climbing the steps

    «Tell me which tread of the steps the water has reached, and alert me when it passes the one we have marked.»

    See this camera →Critical infrastructure

What it does not do

IRIS does not close a valve, does not start a pump and does not cut the power to a room. It sees water where there should be none and says so; a person carries out the manoeuvre.

And it does not measure litres or flow: it is not a level sensor. It says there is a sheet of water, where it is heading and whether it has passed the height you marked on the image. To know exactly how much water there is, you still need the usual instrument.

Questions

Isn’t it cheaper to put water sensors on the floor?
Water sensors are good and cheap, and you should install them. But they only know what happens where they sit: if the water comes in two metres away and runs the other way, the sensor never learns of it. The camera watches the whole aisle, and it shows you the picture too: where it is coming in, where it is heading, whether anyone is inside. The sensible setup has both. By the time the sensor trips, the camera has already said where the water is coming from.
Does it work at night, with the lights off?
It depends on the camera, and you check it site by site. With emergency lighting or infrared, a sheet of water shows up very clearly because it reflects. In total darkness nobody sees anything, neither IRIS nor a person. So before signing off a rule, you open that camera at four in the morning and look at what is actually visible. If it is not visible, you change the lighting or you change the camera. What you do not do is assume.
Can it tell a puddle from a stain on the floor?
Yes, because what it looks at is the change. An oil stain has been there for months and is part of the floor; a sheet of water appears, grows and moves. IRIS compares what it sees with how that floor always looks, and speaks up when something new spreads. Even so, some alerts will turn out to be a bucket knocked over by the cleaners. Ten seconds of video to rule it out is a very low price for finding out at four instead of seven.
Can it say how many people are inside when the water comes in?
Yes, and it is the part that gets used most. It counts how many people are inside the area at that moment and puts it in the same alert, without knowing who they are: it does not recognise faces and it identifies nobody. In an underground chamber or a pump room that changes the whole phone call, because sending a crew to pump out is not the same as sending them to get two people out with water up to their knees.

See all the questions

The real interface, step by step

You set the rule once. IRIS applies it every time.

You will see a summary of the interface, played step by step and hands-free. Each round starts with another case. The complete tool does not fit in a demo.

  1. The rule gets built
  2. It goes to every camera
  3. Published, it watches alone
  4. And then it fires
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These words are the ones we have built, not the ones IRIS understands. The list falls short on purpose: you ask for it in a sentence, and sentences do not run out. Tell us what is in front of your cameras and we will tell you whether it understands it, or not yet.

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And the best part

A recollection cannot be checked.A number can, and it comes out the same every day.

The number does not depend on who was on shift or how they remember it. It is measured the same way every day, and that is why people counting is certified by the Centro Español de Metrología.

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