Floor drains and downspouts backing up at a company’s training center near St. Louis, Mo., caught the attention of a general contractor shooting grades for an extension of the building’s parking lot. The contractor called Mike Laughlin of Mid America Drain Service in Valley Park, Mo. Laughlin popped the lid on the parking lot manhole farthest from the building and saw water, which he and Kevin Bessler pumped out using a hydroexcavator from Vac-Con Inc.“Nobody had any idea what piping was down there,” says Laughlin. It took two hours flushing at 80 gpm/3,000 psi to clean the completely blocked line
