Honestly I’m getting sick of trying to bring up issues to the forefront only for folks to giggle about them endlessly up until they can be used for doomposting material about how We’re All Fucked and how It Needs To Be Taken Seriously Oh Wait We Can’t Do Anything But Look On In Terror.
Recently a local neighborhood located in a traditionally underserved minority-populated area flooded again with a combination of stormwater and raw sewage due to a combination of utterly preventable failures, natural circumstances, and underinvestment both financially and politically. Toilets, sink drains, and floor drains backed up into commercial establishments and, I’m definitely hoping, not homes. God forbid if that happens again like it did last year and some times before that.
Of course, I try to tell others about it, but the response has largely been giggles about the nature of it. I can assure you that for the folks who got flooded, none of this is giggle-worthy. For the folks who have been warning of such an event occurring, this definitely isn’t giggle-worthy.
I wish I could get more responses besides giggling and “Oh, we’ll look into that” and then a continuation of the status quo.
With rising sea levels and higher tides providing less opportunity for contents of surcharged/overloaded sewers to go out, there’s only one direction for them to go, and that’s up. That ‘up’ is up through the rest of the system, up into private sewers, and eventually shower drains, floor drains, laundry machines, sink drains, and yes, toilets. Water damage will fuck your shit up. It will absolutely make places uninhabitable, which, if folks can’t afford to deal with such an eventuality, will also ruin lives, lives of folks who already are on the losing end of life.
But yes, keep giggling. But if you’re the one who will inevitably have to look into an angry or saddened homeowner’s or businessowner’s eyes to try to explain why such a thing has happened, especially multiple times…
You’re not going to be laughing at all.
Take this sort of concern seriously. I beg of you. I try to, but I’m only one person. Research your local sewerage and stormwater issues, bring them to the attention of the folks who have the power to do something about it, and rag on them about it. Annoy them about it. Piss them off about it.
Because they sure as hell aren’t listening to us who have to deal with it on a daily basis.
anyone who's taken the Seattle Underground Tour should pay special heed to this