Why I don’t want to explore storm water drains

*Or, terrifying excerpts from a how-to guide on exploring drains

If there is a protruding wall and you can't get up a shaft in time, get in close to the downstream side of that wall. This is not very safe but it is better than standing in the path of the oncoming maelstrom. Hanging from a grille is not so good either, you will be dumped on (and may lose your grip) but that might be better than being flushed a few km at high speed. Staying out of the flow is mega-priority... nothing can ruin your day like a derilect lawnmower in the back of the head, and there are nastier things in the feeder canals than old 44 gallon drums; roofing beams, bits of rail track, shopping trolleys. The flow smashes them all along, and they are bad news.

Emergency escape tacticsFirst thing to do is keep cool and rational, don't panic. You are in control. Then leave in a hurry. What if you're 2km from the entrance? Well, use your brain. Water heads for the lowest point... so go to the nearest, preferably downstream manhole shaft and climb up it, and wait for the flood to scream by below you. You need not pop the cover, just stay in the shaft, and climb higher than any `bathtub ring' of polystyrene balls and dead grass you see on the shaft wall. Be warned, you may be up there a long time before the raging torrent desists. It will be loud and frightening, but breathe calmly, conserve your airspace.

Ok, so you're up a drain and notice the side tunnel flow increasing a bit. Check the water. Is it dirty? Is it oily? If yes, it is likely to be raining and you're in something far worse than deep shit if you don't do something about it.

Pay attention to what's going onThings to notice when a drain is filling up: the air currents change, as does the noise level. A quiet drain soon gets noisy as the side tunnels and drop junctions start dumping into the main canal. When lots of water goes into a drain, the air is displaced, and you notice big gusts of wind... this is particularly true if the roads were hot when the rain landed on them; the warm water goes into the drain, heats the air above it, which expands, pushing cold air out in front of it.

Rain and the legendary flash floodThe media and authorities point to the alliterative "flash flood' phenomenon quite a lot. Flash flooding - flooding without warning - is bullshit. It does NOT happen. You have between two and four minutes to get out, up a shaft or on a high ledge before the system is primed... IF you know how to read the signals and don't mess about getting to high ground. You can generally tell if the drain you're in has ever flooded to the top, look for polystyrene bits stuck to the roof or bits of plastic and stick protruding from high stepirons or joints in the pipe or walls.

In theory one could conceivably get anything from a sewage overflow into a drain. Cuts are common when one falls over, and people have occasionally ingested runoff unintentionally. VERY nasty things are more common in sewers than stormwater: Leptospirosis, for instance, is contractable via the skin, and can live for 3 weeks in fresh water (but is killed relatively quickly in salt water). Leptospiria icterohaemorragiae, the causative agent, will kill you in a week or so, or at least damage your hepatic and renal systems. Trouble is, it appears as a cold, rapidly degenerates into pneumonia, and then kills you due to fun things like hepatic failure. You have to smash it with antibiotics during its incubation period, after which time it is too late and you tend to die.

Protozoans are rare, the amebiasis and the Toxoplasmosis Gondii pathogens mainly reside in the sewer system. As for the elusive cryptosporidium... who knows. If it can get in your drinking water, you'll probably find it in stormwater too, and if ingested this protozoan will cause diarrhoea and stomach cramps. Giardia is also occasionally found in stormwater.

From the fungi and worm families, one finds the Ctenomyces interdigitalis (tinea) eumycete is uncommon, though the pathogens for ringworm and the favosan tinea dermatomycoses are present usually. Histoplasmosis is a fungi mainly obtained from pigeon shit dust which contains the spores... another reason why these pests are known as the rats of the air. It can become chronic and has permaturely ended lives of cavers, generally knocking the shit out of your lungs first, then ulcerating the respiratory tract, including nose and ears, eventually going for bone marrow.

Faecal Escherichia coli bacterium is common... indeed, most of the waterborne pathogens and parasitic organisms are available to you, including things from the pseudomonas family, the vibrios, the aerobacters, the proteus group, paracolobactrum, salmonella, various tubercelle bacilli... all of these are happy in water and use it as a transmission vector.

Generally it is the microscopic inhabitants which cause trouble. Drains carry significant amounts of sewer overflow, dog shit, rotting plant material and the occasional dead animal. Particularly after rain, drains contain elevated levels of sewer material, since the sewer is built to overflow into the storm drainage system instead of bursting out ino the street where the population can see it and get ill from it. If cut in a drain, attend to it as soon as possible with ethanol or other disinfectant. Deep puncture wounds (stepping on nails, broken glass, etc) are open routes to clostridium tetanii (tetanus).

Occasionally you will meet someone who lives in a drain or abandoned factory and they may consider you a trespasser. Since the economic rationalisation of the mental health system more and more disturbed individuals have been turned loose to fend for themselves. They tend to live in cheap housing such as the places we explore recreationally. When one is a guest, one respects the wishes of the host. If they suggest you should fuck off, don't wait for a stronger invitation. Sometimes, however, they are quite friendly and enjoy a visit.

I have yet to see a saltwater crocodile in a drain but I wouldnt be surprised if such were found in Darwin, where the tides are huge (8 to 10m) and the crocs are plentiful. I could only suggest that you carry a 12-gague shotgun with solid load shells, since crocs are fast, powerful and vicious. They are also patient, and if you go up a shaft will probably wait for you to come down again. These dinosaurs have not lasted for as long as they have by being stupid. Note that discharging a shotgun, pyrotechnic or explosive device in a confined space like a tunnel will significantly damage your hearing if you wear no earplugs, and the smoke from the burnt propellant is a respiratory irritant.

Mosquitoes tend to aggregate in stagnant puddles, they are worth your vigilance due to the pathogens they carry.

Large numbers of hibernating bats are sometimes found on the roof of drains. Some may carry Lyssavirus, which was responsible for a fatality in Queensland in 1996. They will not attack you, just leave them alone. They will do their utmost not to fly into you.

Ok, so you have just popped a cover in the middle of nowhere, and a drain yawns invitingly below you. Now then, is it safe to breathe? You can always lash out on pellistor-detector driven gas analysis systems, (Jaycar sell a kit (KG9178, $35) which picks up carbon monoxide and flammable volatiles, I don't know anything about their accuracy) but usually the average drain explorer will not have these things handy.

Manhole shafts tend to have spiders and cockroaches living in them. These organisms breathe oxygen like us, serving as a useful way to determine if O2 is actually present. Note that they can live on a lot less O2 than we can, and that just because there are a heap of cockies down there it doesn't mean the air is OK. Total lack of it will kill them as well as us, of course.

CockroachesThese guys are pretty tough, and some people are mis-informed as they think when they lift a manhole and see a hundred or so hanging about under the top of the manhole, that the air is OK. The reason they are doing this is because they are trying to get OXYGEN. Don't be conned and think cockroaches mean it is 100% safe.

One of the things the neophyte drainer discovers is that drains are slippery. That is, the surface is either covered in algal slime or is just implicitly smooth due to erosion and wetness. There is a wide variety of conditions, ranging from virgin rough concrete to slimy red brick, cement pipe, plastic, surfaces covered in pebbles, mud, broken glass and assorted members of the slime families. Until one is used to it, one tends to just fall over a lot, usually to the mirth of ones colleagues.

-http://www.infiltration.org/observations-approach.html