Sewers

What would cause a neighborhood sewer line to "clog"?

Tonight I came home and the city maintenance crew was on the corner of our neighborhood doing something to the sewer. I went outside to ask the guys what they were doing cause my house was start to smell like poo (although luckily I didn't find a back up in my basement) and they that the sewer was full and would have backed up by tomorrow morning. What would have caused this? We have gotten a lot of rain and our area is completely saturated from that and from a lot of melting snow.

Public Comments

1. Anything can cause a line to clog. Roots will often grow in a pipe causing it to clog.
2. The storm sewer and sanitary sewer are 2 completely different systems. Storm sewer, which is fed by the grates along the curb and gutter of your street, is designed to carry away rain, melting snow, etc. Often there is a retention pond nearby where this sewer system drains. Sanitary sewer, which is the one they were working on, takes waste water and sewage from the houses on your street, feeds them into a main, which eventually works its way to the wastewater treatment plant. This system is more or less closed from the outside, except through the manholes in the middle of the street. This system can be backed up due to tree roots breaking through the line, or often from items that have been discharged into the system, such as diapers, large wads of toilet paper, etc. These can catch on a small obstruction, which will eventually create a clog. That's why the manholes are there. When the flow stops, they can come farther and farther upstream until they find it.
3. tree roots are common
4. Rats are fond of stocking up rocks I don't know what for, perhaps as bridges for them to pass by. They can become very succesful here and clog the sewer too...