My theory about why I'm afraid of thunder and thunderstorms is that as a child every single house we lived in had the basement-flooding-with-sewage problem. It's incredibly common in the city, and even the house my parents live in now (which was not a home I ever lived in) has the problem. Because our sewer system is combined sewage and run-off and in most parts of town really really old, any heavy downpour will overflow the sewers, and any basement with a drain in the floor is fair game. It's disgusting and the city doesn't really have enough money to fix the problem. Really he best thing to do is hermetically seal that drain in your basement. My parents did that (though whatever they sealed it with was no match for the flash-flooding we had a couple weeks ago), after deciding that the washer overflowing was way way less of a risk than typical Pittsburgh summer weather driving sewage in to their basement on a regular basis.
Ick. The neighbourhood I live in now is a) at one of the highest points in the city and b) not built until the 1950's, so we're pretty much safe up there.
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ninetydegrees
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on 2009-07-02 05:42 pm (UTC)Ick. The neighbourhood I live in now is a) at one of the highest points in the city and b) not built until the 1950's, so we're pretty much safe up there.