Zimbabwe City Residents Synchronize Toilet Flush

Seattle Post-Intelligencer ^ | September 23, 2012 | Gillian Gotora

[SeminoleCounty]

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — City authorities in Zimbabwe's second largest city said Saturday they were appealing to home owners to flush their toilets at a specified time as a way to unblock sewers after days of severe water rationing. Bulawayo City Council has asked its more than 1 million residents to flush their toilets simultaneously at 7:30 p.m. when water supplies are restored. City officials say "synchronized flushing" is needed to clear waste that would have accumulated in sanitary facilities which will have been affected by days of water outages.

[himno hero]

another one one of obama’s heros and african mentors demonstrating the power of marxism , racism, ignorance and corruption.

[Chode]

i wonder if those at the lowest end of the line are in for a big surprise???

[informavoracious]

Americans need to do a synchronized flush on the first Tuesday in November.

[blueunicorn6]

Synchronized toilet flushing? Great, another new Olympic event.

[SeminoleCounty]

...Reminds me of the time I witnessed several dozen Nigerians and a tow truck attempt to roll start a dead Boeing 707 by hauling it down the runway as fast as they could go

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LOL....was one of them inside trying to pop the clutch...LOL

[SeminoleCounty]

...I wonder if those at the lowest end of the line are in for a big surprise???

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At least they will have a plentiful supply of fertilizer for their gardens....

[Chode]

pretty much...

[Rebelbase]

[llevrok]

I remember in college there were stories about synchronized flushing

Our dorm's toilets had great down draft. Some smarty figured out that if you stuck a foot or so of TP in the water and unwound the rest of the roll out the door and down the hall, you could flush and get the TP to move ahead about 6 inches at a time

TP races between two flushers became an nightly event .... until the dorm manager did not refill our TP supply one morning.

[jmcenanly]

I had heard somewhere that the same sort of thing happened during the commercial breaks during the prime time run of Bonanza

[poobear]

Late response, but you’ve got that right!

[Mack the knife]

In the early 1950s, sewers began breaking in New York City. The civil engineers spent some time trying to figure out why. The sewers had been designed to service a much higher capacity than the buildings were generating ...[assuming “random” flushes].

Finally, the civil engineers discovered that the breakage was occurring in the evening ... during the new TV Series “I Love Lucy”, which had become a terrific hit. As more TVs were sold, more and more people watched the program, and more and more people “synchronized” their flushes during commercials, resulting in a “water hammer” effect, breaking the sewers. As a result, the entire New York City sewer system had to be redesigned and rebuilt.

This came to be known as the “I Love Lucy effect”.