By now everybody has heard of that cruise ship that had an engine room fire which knocked out lots of services including the ship's plumbing. Apparently none of the toilets had been working for days and the air got pretty rank and the customers got pretty miffed because they couldn't escape the situation.
When I hear of the story it reminded me of an incident that happened to me some 35 years ago.
I had just finished USAF basic training and was sent to Chanute AFB near Champagne IL for specialized training. I was there for about 3 months and during one two week period we had our own problem with overflowing toilets.
The recruits, of which I was one, were housed on barracks (aka dorms) that were 3 story buildings of 12 ft x 12 ft rooms. Each room housed 3 airmen and their footlockers, 3 bunks, and a desk, and nothing else. There were two communal bathrooms on each floor.
One day the sewer backed up in the barracks and sewage started coming up through the floor drains and the toilets on the ground floor. Luckily my room was on the third floor so I was able to avoid the stench of the raw sewage -- the first day.
Normally, one would expect a problem like this to be fixed within a few hours. I've had drain line problems in my own home a few times over the years and a call to the plumber brings them out right away. One time I even had to call a plumber on Thanksgiving day. He charged a premium, but he fixed the problem which is good when you have a house full of family and guests.
Being young and a fresh recruit I expected the same kind of response from the USAF. Not so. They weren't able to get the problem fixed in a couple of hours. No, it was more like 10 days before they got the problem fixed. Did you get that folks? TEN DAYS! TEN EFFEN DAYS! We were expected to live in a building where the first floor was continually filling fresh human urine and excrement for ten days.
It was unbelievable. The stench was overpowering. I was on the third floor and about as far away from it as could be but still the hallways were so bad that you took a breath before leaving your room and held it until you ran down the hall and made it outdoors.
The way most of us were able to survive was to keep our windows wide open. Please note that this was February which was a double edged sword. It was good because the cold kept the smell in check more than it would have during a hot summer but it was also like sleeping outdoors in the dead of winter. Everybody slept in their jackets and winter gear.
The poor souls on the first floor had no chance. Opening the windows didn't cut it. To the best of my knowledge everyone moved out. Did they move to other base housing provided by the USAF during this emergency? Nope. They moved into hotel rooms off base and paid for the rooms out of their own pockets. Were they reimbursed at a later date? Nope, heck, most of them would only be in the USAF for another 3-1/2 years so there wouldn't be enough time to wade through all of the red tape and get reimbursed before they were discharged. The were stuck with the bill themselves.
Ten days of living in human sewage. This wasn't during a war in a foreign land, this wasn't in a ghetto in a depressed section of town, this was an active US military base and as far as I could tell, the USAF did nothing out of the ordinary to help out. It seemed to have the same priority as any other request for repair.
Why do I write this in the politics section? Well, for the last 100 or so years some Americans have been eager to give the federal government control over more and more aspects of our lives. We're expected to believe that the same federal government that couldn't get a drain unclogged for ten days and left 300 servicemen to live in urine and feces will be just fine at managing our healthcare.
I say BS.
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