Drain backups in a city built on ground with no slope
A sewer line works on fall. It needs a consistent drop from the fixture to the main, and the main needs a drop of its own. West Memphis has almost no natural grade to give it, which is one reason a heavy rain or a blocked lateral shows up first in the lowest fixture inside the house rather than out in the yard.
Give the address and what you can see. The rest gets worked out at the building.
One utility, three services
Water, sewer and electric here all belong to West Memphis Utilities, a city-owned system operating since 1940 under a seven-member Utility Commission with roughly 80 employees. That structure is useful to know at 2 a.m., because a single call reaches the people responsible for the main whether the problem turns out to be supply-side or sewer-side.
The first thing to establish is which side of the property line the blockage sits on. If neighbors are backing up too, or if the backup starts when it rains rather than when the washing machine drains, the cause is more likely to be in the municipal line or in wet-weather flow than in your lateral. If it is only your house and only certain fixtures, the lateral is the place to look. Cleanup runs the same either way; who pays for the repair does not.
- You callOne number per county. The dispatcher takes the address, the ZIP and a short description of what happened.
- A local crew calls backAn independent restoration contractor already working that county rings you directly and sets a time.
- They look, then scope itNothing is priced from a phone call. The crew walks the building, takes readings, and writes a scope you can hand to your adjuster.
ZIP codes this page dispatches
72301
These are the ZIP codes on the coverage sheet for this county, printed in full so nothing is implied.
What comes out and what stays
Sewage is grossly contaminated water, and the rule is straightforward: porous material that absorbed it leaves the building. Carpet and pad, wet fiberglass insulation, particleboard cabinet bases, and the lower band of drywall all come out. Vinyl plank and sheet flooring usually come up as well, since the water travels underneath and cannot be dried through the surface. Solid wood, concrete slab, tile set in mortar and framing lumber can be cleaned and dried.
The sequence is extraction, bulk removal, cleaning of every surface that was contacted, and then controlled drying of the structure that remains, verified with meter readings rather than by appearance. Antimicrobial application is part of cleaning, not a substitute for removing the material that soaked. What any of this means for a person's health belongs to a physician; the crew's job stops at the building.
Local background
- The city's first Mississippi River bridge opened May 12, 1892, the Harahan rail/road bridge opened in 1916, and the six-lane Hernando de Soto Bridge carrying I-40 opened in 1972.
- The West Memphis Commercial Historic District, along the 700-900 blocks of East Broadway (US-70), comprises 22 mostly single-story brick vernacular commercial buildings built 1930-1950, some with Art Deco details, listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 24, 2008.
- Southland Park Gaming and Racing, a greyhound track turned casino operating since 1956, sits near the I-40/I-55 interchange; other major employers include trucking and distribution operations such as Schneider National Carriers, FedEx National LTL and Family Dollar Distribution, reflecting the city's role as a freight hub since I-55 opened in the 1950s.
Slab construction changes the picture
Most houses in this city sit on slab. There is no basement to catch the flow and no crawl space to open up, so the water spreads flat across finished floors and pushes under the bottom plate of the walls. Toe kicks, closet floors and the void under a bathtub deck hold it longest, and those are the places a musty smell comes from a week later if the job was done too quickly.
Slab also means the fixtures that back up first are the lowest ones connected to the line: a tub, a shower pan, a floor drain in a utility room. Water rising in a tub while a toilet is flushed elsewhere in the house is a classic sign of a blockage downstream of both, not of a problem with either fixture. Running more water to test it makes the mess larger, so the better move is to stop using water in the building and get the line checked.
Common questions
Sewage only touched the tile floor. Do I really need anyone?
Maybe not. A small overflow of clean toilet water caught immediately on sealed tile, with nothing wicked into a wall or a cabinet, is inside what a careful owner can clean. Once it has reached carpet, drywall, cabinet bases or the space under flooring, or once it involves waste rather than clean water, the material has to come out.
It backs up every time we get a hard rain. What does that suggest?
Wet-weather flow, usually from stormwater reaching the sanitary system through cracked pipe, bad cleanout caps or downspouts tied into the wrong line. On flat ground with tight clay, that extra volume has nowhere to go but up the lowest fixture. It is worth reporting to the utility, because the fix is often outside your property.
Can the drywall be dried instead of cut?
Not where sewage soaked it. Gypsum wicks contaminated water upward and holds it in the paper facing. The standard practice is to cut above the wet line to a workable seam, dry the framing and cavity, and replace the board.
Whose responsibility is the lateral line?
In most arrangements the property owner is responsible for the lateral from the building to the main, and the utility for the main. West Memphis Utilities runs sewer alongside water and electric, so one call gets the question answered rather than three.
The same job in nearby towns
The number at the top of this page is the one that reaches a crew for this county.