Hurricane Florence Info
Hurricane Florence will soon make landfall in the Carolinas. While forecasters can currently only give low confidence estimates as to how it will affect Putnam County, early indications suggest that we may receive up to two inches of rain this weekend and this total could rise depending on how the storm tracks as it moves inland.
While any rainfall totals would pale in comparison to what our friends to our south will receive, ground saturated with recent rain may mean that Florence could still cause localized flooding in our area.
Out of an abundance of caution, Putnam PSD urges our sewer customers to take the following steps in case the hurricane hits our region harder than expected:
• Be prepared for any floor drains that are connected to your sewer line to possibly experience a backup. Move any items near the drain to another part of your house.
• Keep an eye on basement-level toilets (aka Pittsburgh toilets) and showers, as they may be another source of wastewater backing up into buildings.
• If you have an outdoor cleanout or sewer tap for future use on your property, check to see that they are capped and that the caps are undamaged.
• Loosen cleanout caps if they are firmly secured, thereby allowing it to pop off in the event of a major backup, thereby directing wastewater to your yard rather than in your house.
• As always, keep FOG (fat, oil, and grease), tampons, pads, diapers, cigarettes, paper towels, “flushable” wipes, and anything else that could contribute blockages to help maintain overall wastewater collection system efficiency.
As Putnam PSD’s sewer system is wastewater-only, we should not experience issues from Florence that may face some combined sewer/storm water systems, but with these simple steps, we can ensure that sewer backup isn’t one more problem for us in the event that this storm is worse than expected.
Thank you for your cooperation.












