The ThunderBlogs

It rained throughout Saturday night (Sept 18). At 10 a.m. on Sunday, when Dr Nitya Sharma was watching a TV show at his house at 54^th and Main Street, he got a call from one of the tenants living on the basement floor of his house. Lucky Chauhan, the tenant, informed Sharma that the carpet on the passageway of the floor was soaked with water.

Sharma rushed to the basement floor and asked what the tenants did. Chauhan told Sharma that they had done nothing wrong. Both Chauhan and Sharma inspected the taps in kitchen and bathroom of the floor so as to check if all the taps were off. Then Sharma checked the adjacent room where a washing machine was kept to find that the pipe system in that room was also fine.

Sharma put his right hand on his forehead and said “the sewer must have been choked.” The moment Sharma guessed the cause of the problem, his wife Manju said there was similar problem in the neighbouring houses. She said she called her neighbours and confirmed that it was because of a blockade in the drainage system.

Sharma said he witnessed the problem for the first time in seven years since he started living at 54th.

Sharma then called a restoration company asking it clear the mess. The company sent two staff to clear things at Sharma’s house. They reached there only in the evening. David Armstrong, one of the staff, said it was a busy day for them. He said the sewer water had overflown in around 35 houses in the locality at the 54^th alone.

The staff from the restoration company removed the carpet, checked the dampness on the walls, sprayed some disinfectant on the floor and fitted a machine that would absorb the moisture from the floor and walls throughout Sunday night.

On Monday, a staff from a claims company that works in between the restoration company and the insurance company came to inspect, investigate and adjust the damage caused by the overflow of drainage water.

David Copp, an adjuster with Brouwer Claims, said they had 80 cases on Sunday in different parts of Vancouver including Burnaby, West Vancouver and Surrey. He said the problem of drainage overflow appears in mostly old and lower parts of the city where the drainage for rain water and drainage for sanitation are interconnected. He explained that when first big rainfall after the summer washes off leaves and other dirt, it may lead to choking of the drainage system and the drainage water may overflow into the houses.

Copp said the problem is not new. Similar problems are reported two to three times every year. He suggested having separate drainage for rain water and sanitary drainage.