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Journalism of Courage
Heavy rain lashed the USA’s Chicago Sunday, inundating homes and streets across the Windy City. As reported by The New York Times, almost five inches of rain was recorded in the city which soon came to a grinding halt with flooded roads and overflowing drains everywhere.
One of the videos that have emerged since from Chicago shows a major burst in a sewer that led to its contents being spewed out in full force in the middle of a road, quite like a huge geyser.
The clip, first posted online by Facebook user Rashida TreiMama, was reportedly taken at the Lawrence and Pulaski area Sunday. Since then, the video has been widely circulated across social media platforms.
https://twitter.com/CasualCostumer/status/1569026587462438916
https://twitter.com/drsxr/status/1569014601227927553
https://twitter.com/nastynastyjuice/status/1569078825924927489
Commenting on the ghastly sight, a Chicago native wrote on Twitter, “It’s been absolutely pouring rain for hours. The drainage system got overwhelmed. It’s not designed for the issues wrought by climate change.”
In an attempt to explain the sewer burst captured in the video, the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, which looks after wastewater and stormwater management in the area, tweeted, “it’s a combined sewer surge, the pressure and power during a downpour when systems are already at capacity can cause geysers like this”.
The visuals also prompted netizens to criticise the city’s infrastructure which seemed to be underprepared to handle such intense weather events. Echoing this view, a Twitter user wrote, “Lack of infrastructure maintenance coming to roost.” Another person remarked, “This city is so unprepared for climate change man 😭”.
