 Hello everyone, I'm Alicia Woodruff and welcome to the Fort Report. Pop quiz, what do you do with grease and food scraps when you're cleaning up in your kitchen? If you answered put it down the drain or garbage disposal, you may be starting the holiday season with a sewer back up. Just because you put the grease down the drain doesn't necessarily mean it's going very far. In fact, as we learned from Mary in the water department, food particles and grease sticks around in your pipes like that party guest that just won't leave. So what you're seeing here is we've got a camera going through a sewer pipe and all this build up on the sides is grease. Grease is really our biggest maintenance nightmare in the sewer systems. And when it solidifies in those pipes, it becomes as hard as a rock. Just like your body has veins and arteries, the city's water and sewer system gets a pretty important liquid to the parts that need it and carry off the waste. And just like those veins and arteries, months and years of fatty grease can build, meaning less water gets through until the pipe is blocked completely. The issue is if our pipes get congested, that flow is going to back up somewhere and it could end up back it up in your house and we don't want that and you don't want that. Palms throughout the city are connected by the sewer system, so even if you dump grease just once, you may not be the only one who does it. It's not just you, it's the grease from you and your neighbor and all your other neighbors and the people down the road or upstream from you that are flowing down in your direction. You can stop greasy build up in the pipes around your home by soaking up grease from pots and pans with paper towels and emptying any food scraps into the trash, even if you have a garbage disposal. If it turns out to be too late for your home and the sewer does back up, make the city your first call no matter what time of day or night. In a small report you have a sewer back up, we'll send a crew out to see where the back up is. Is it on our line or is it on your line? If it's on our line, we'll take care of removing the blockage. If it's on your line, we'll let you know and we'll let you know either way but we'll let you know it's on your line and then you'll need to call a plumber to resolve the problem.