Ice Bucket Challenge Leaves Scottish Island Without Water

Thanks to the huge popularity of the ice bucket challenge, the water system on a Scottish island shut down, leaving the natives feeling a bit dehydrated and somewhat silly.

The ice bucket challenge has been called “one of the most viral philanthropic social media campaigns in history.”

With a horde of camera happy and self-obsessed celebrities leading the charge, the trend for throwing a bucket of ice cold water over one’s head has raised both the profile and considerable funds for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

Now there’s nothing wrong with raising millions for charity as long as it ends up in the right pockets.

Yet when the craze for wasting water leaves an entire island with a chronic water shortage, then we’ve got a serious problem Houston.

When the ice bucket challenge charity craze really got cooking on the tiny Inner Hebridean island of Colonsay, which has a population of, wait for it, around 135 people, the island’s water system shut down.

On the remote eight-mile long isle, the water system shuts down automatically to cut waste and needs to be turned back on manually by engineers.

Due to the locals enthusiasm to throw water on their heads on an island surrounded by mile after mile of the blue stuff, engineers were called out an unbelievable five times during the course of the weekend.

Colonsay Brewery’s David Johnston told The Sun:

“The challenge spread round the island like wildfire. It hit a peak on Sunday evening. The water system must have thought there was a burst main.”

It’s not a pretty thought, but you can almost picture the entire population of a remote Scottish island cutoff and cast adrift from civilization as we know it, recklessly throwing bucket after bucket of freezing cold water over their heads.

Just visualize the scene for a moment. There they all are, red-faced and wild-eyed with the best evening’s entertainment they’ve had in many a moon. Hear their hysterical laughter as another eager victim goes willfully and with strident intent to take their boastful place beneath the mighty bucket of ice.

Yet in all their wild and wet festivities, these unwitting fundraisers were putting everyone’s life at risk as the water supply was cut off time after time after time.

A spokesman for Scottish Water said water had been shut off during the weekend but added that residents were still able to use stored supplies on the island.

It almost makes you wonder if Mel Gibson dressed up as Mr Braveheart wasn’t present on Colonsay during the ice bucket challenge, encouraging his fellow countryman and imploring in the untamed highland air:

“And dying in your bed many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here as young men and say yes we may have run out of water, but at least we took part in the ice bucket challenge.”

Where will it end?