Before the humans emptied it, South Florida was a swamp. For years infrastructure improvements have been made so it could look as good as it does today, with a piping and drainage system designed to bring water back to the ocean. But Hurricane Irma reminded us of how much that infrastructure has aged, confirming a prediction they made at Quartz.
Emily Atkin of New Republic reports that Irma, in addition to causing billions of dollars in damages and at least 82 deaths, also brought a lot of shit, at least 9 billion gallons of it. The worst of this is that wastewater is dangerous both to human health and to the environment. According to Atkins:
At the time of publication of this article, at least 113 "public notices of contamination" have been reported. By combining them, we can estimate that these are more than 28 million gallons of treated and treated sewage that have been released in 22 counties of the state. However, the total amount is much worse: at least 43 of those reports mention an "unknown" or "increasing" amount of released wastes. And the reports keep coming, even a dozen every hour.
These sewage came to the streets thanks to a combination of aging infrastructure, the fact that before the whole region was full of swamps and that Irma caused a blackout that left no energy to the pumping systems that drain the wastewater, according to Washington Post. In addition, many of the residents have septic tanks that can overflow in case of flooding, and other chemicals were added to the disgusting mixture, as fuel released by a broken tank.
It is not clear exactly what is going to happen, but it will not be good for human health. There is a possibility of gastrointestinal problems due to E. coli, norovirus or salmonella, says Atkin, and cases of staphylococcal infections may also be reported. Once the water is drained to Vizcaína Bay the risk will reduce, but there will still be the possibility of getting sick from any puddle or dirty water left in the region.
Florida may have to deal with this problem for several weeks. The region will then need to make improvements to its infrastructure to prevent that from happening again. [New Republic]