Cooking Grease Down a Drain Eyed in Sewage Flood of 80 Homes

NEW YORK — A blocked pipe sent sewage flooding into at least 80 homes in a Queens neighborhood Saturday, with city officials pointing to a familiar culprit on the heels of Thanksgiving: cooking grease poured down a drain. The sewer line failure caused extensive property damage in the Jamaica section of Queens near the Belt Parkway and Kennedy Airport, drawing a significant response by the Fire Department, utility crews and multiple city agencies. The blockage is in a major pipe that carries sewage from the neighborhood to a treatment center, officials said, and some workers were using pressure hoses and vacuum trucks to break it down Sunday while other workers set up a bypass system to resume the normal flow later in the day. Homeowners said that the sewage started backing up into their basements around 1 a.m. Saturday. By late morning, the wastewater was several feet deep, they said. Initial reports suggested that nearly 300 homes were affected. A number of homeowners used sump pumps to try to bail out their homes — a frustratingly slow undertaking that seemed to reverse itself in some homes Sunday as fatigue and a wintry combination of rain and snow set in. “This morning, there was no water here,” said Jaswinder Singh, who was in his nephew’s flooded basement Sunday as a diaper bag floated past. “You see the water is raising.” Some residents, like Cardell Hall, who has lived in the neighborhood on 133rd Avenue for more than 50 years, lost power Saturday and were heating their homes with the kitchen oven. “It smells horrendous,” Hall, 65, said of the sewage. “It was up to maybe my thighs. I just hope I don’t get sick from it.” He went to a Home Depot to buy a sump pump to try to stem the tide of wastewater, which had reached the fourth step of his basement stairs. Some residents were frustrated with the city’s response. “When something of this magnitude happens, I would be surprised if there isn’t a way to communicate to the neighborhood what they should do, what steps they should take,” said Howard Hollins, 41, who works in construction and has lived in the neighborhood his whole life. “It just took too long, not just to mobilize but to have a presence.” A community meeting with officials from the city’s emergency management agencies and the Red Cross was scheduled for Sunday afternoon. The Red Cross met with more than 80 residents Saturday and provided meals and access to a shelter. Cleanup kits will be available after the sewage has receded, according to the Red Cross. Residents were urged to ventilate their homes — a difficult task during Sunday’s rain and sleet storm. Some said they were afraid to seek shelter elsewhere because of the possibility of looting. Mayor Bill de Blasio wrote on Twitter Saturday night that city water crews were making repairs to the sewer main and were bringing in more pumping equipment to help with the cleanup. The city’s Department of Environmental Protection said the cause of the blockage was still under investigation, with the inquiry expected to focus on whether cooking grease had been poured down a drain and had congealed in the sewer line in the cold weather. The flooding occurred in homes with toilets in their basements; those without were unaffected. Some of the homeowners enlisted the help of private plumbers to deal with the mess, including Roto-Rooter. The company has an entire section on its website devoted to giving tips for avoiding Thanksgiving sink and toilet clogs, which it said are common. John Cataneo, an owner of Gateway Plumbing & Heating in Manhattan, said homeowners can avoid clogs by putting cooking grease in the refrigerator to congeal and throwing it away with solid waste. “The best thing to do is to not let it go down the drain, of course,” he said. Cataneo said he would be surprised if grease from a single home caused such a widespread backup, though it could compound problems with a sewer main. A backup can happen if sewer pipes, which rely on gravity, are pitched at the wrong angle, he said. A blockage can also occur if a tree root grows through a crack in the pipe. Christian Perez, 43, said he used towels and two sump pumps to try to clean up the mess in his basement, where the sewage had risen to 3 feet. He said a refrigerator, washer and dryer and a few beds had been destroyed. Perez said he was sending his wife and children to a hotel for the night while he waited back at the house in case more sewage started flooding the basement. “Everything is done,” Perez said. “It’s some Christmas gift.” This article originally appeared in The New York Times . ]]>