Counselor B is the least dramatic, more reasonable person on staff this summer, so when he came to me last night and said that, I knew that there was a problem. I followed him downstairs and he wasn't kidding. The 6 showers in the boys bathroom and the one shower in the handicap bathroom were filled with a liquid mixture of poop and mushy toilet paper. I wanted to gag and run away, but instead, I matched his calmness and said, "ok, why don't you go make a sign and grab some chairs to block off the door and I will deal with this."
He asked me what I was going to do to deal with it and I said, "well, I'm not sure yet, but I'll take care of it."
Sewage-filled showers is a new one- 6 years into camp and there are still surprises on a regular basis.
I walkie-talkied M, A and K. One of them responded back, "which of us do you want?" and I responded with, "all of you would be great."
It was 7:40 and the dance party was scheduled to start in 5 minutes. After the dance, kids would be taking showers.
I called our guy (yes, I have the mechanical guy's cell phone) and he told me it sounded like the septic tank was full and needed to be pumped. The tank has been full in the past and never OVERFLOWED into the showers. I left a message for the septic company we use, but they didn't have an emergency number.
M, A, K and I decided that since we had piles of standing sewage that we should try to figure out the source, so we turned on all of the faucets in the building, flushed all the toilets and turned on the showers. Everything seemed to be working normally and we couldn't figure out what might have caused the eruption.
I called Property Manager T to ask if we'd had that tank pumped the last time and we hadn't (which is what I thought). He asked why and I briefly explained the situation but assured him we had it under control. He arrived about 5 minutes later and also couldn't figure out what was wrong. I felt bad for bothering him at night when he was at home, but T sorta loves this kinda thing and loves being needed. He told us to leave the mess but I told him to go home and not worry about us. I can't put into words how much I appreciate his dedication, his care for camp and for all of us.
I got the dance party started with the kids and then the four of us went back to our houses to change into sewage clean-up outfits (a tee shirt you could throw away, rubber boots, a bandana for over your face and heavy rubber gloves). We dumped about a gallon of bleach on the floor and then used dust pans to scoop up the mess. We sprayed the whole bathroom down with a hose and then used a broom to scrub the floor with more bleach. We took down all the shower curtains and sprayed down the walls. Once we had scrubbed everything, we threw away the broom and dustpans and mopped the entire bathroom, as well as the entire floor of the basement (everywhere we had walked in our boots) with bleach water. Actually, it might be the cleanest that area has ever been.
We weren't sure if the sewage would return, so I made an announcement at the end of the dance that no one was allowed to use the showers that night. Kids and staff took their toothbrushes to the Rec Hall and brushed their teeth there. Some of the counselors complained, but when I said, "I literally just picked up piles of poop with my hands, do you think I am concerned that you can't take a shower tonight?" they kept their complaints to themselves.
Just a few hours earlier, camp had two visitors from the American Camp Association to re-accredit us. We'd toured through camp and they complimented how clean and lovely the camp is. The bathrooms looked great when we looked at them at 3pm. The visitors had so many nice things to say and even took photos of a few different things around camp because they were so impressed. We passed our accreditation with 100%.
I am not sure what my reaction had been if the sewage explosion had happened while our ACA visit was going on, but I was incredibly thankful the pipes waited until the visit was over to explode.
The guy from the septic company came to camp this afternoon. He couldn't find a problem. He said that sometimes pipes get clogged and then un-clog themselves. He said to call back if it happens again, but that everything looked fine. So, it's possible this could happen again in the next few days or it is possible this is just another experience to add to my list of insane things that have happened at this camp...
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