An Austrian man is demanding substantial damages after he was blasted off the toilet when hundreds of thousands of hail stones exploded out of it.
Martin Bierbauer said: "I heard the pipes rumbling a bit, and suddenly hailstones the size of golf balls started exploding out of the toilet like it was a popcorn machine.
"There was an avalanche of ice that quickly filled the toilet, then the entire flat, and eventually the entire building."
"I ran down the stairs with the hailstones following me, and other residents did the same."
Another resident, Silvia Streit, said: "I grabbed a board and put it over the toilet, but the pressure was so great, I ended up sitting on the board as the hail flowed through the flat and down the stairs."
Freak weather has led to temperatures of over 35 degrees centigrade in Austria which a few days later plunge to near zero as freak hail storms batter the country.
The incident at the block of flats in Eisenstadt, the capital of the province of Burgenland, was caused by hailstones flooding into a local drain during a torrential downpour, which became blocked.
Local council spokesman Wolfgang Leinner said: "The pressure was too great, the hailstones had to go somewhere and they came out through the toilets it seems."
...WHAT?
This... just... wow. If you put it in a movie you'd get mocked for it not being believable.
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I'm still inclined to call it a hoax. I find it difficult to believe that the exterior pressure would be so high as to blow someone off a toilet and fill an apartment w/ hailstones.
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Hoax. To generate pressure at a second story level, the hail outside the grate would have to be heaped up higher than a second story apartment, even ignoring all of the problems with trying to jam little balls of ice up a long narrow pipe with several bends.
Feil wrote:Hoax. To generate pressure at a second story level, the hail outside the grate would have to be heaped up higher than a second story apartment, even ignoring all of the problems with trying to jam little balls of ice up a long narrow pipe with several bends.
It could be city water backed up behind a blockage of hailstones, it doesn't have to be just hail.
Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
I'd like to see pictures of the outside of the apartment. Maybe security footage too.
Given how the article describes it, you'd think there would be injuries.
Supposedly, the entire population of the apartment building ran from an onslaught of ice from there water systems.
I'm sorry, that's really pushing it. One or two lower floor apartments near were the water comes into the building, I can see. But the entire apartment building?
And trying to cover it and sit on it with a board? That's the ultimate in 'Yeah right'.
Just a few weeks ago, someone put a video on SDN that showed a stormwater surge throw a manhole cover 10 feet in the air. If the blockage in the pipes was tight enough, and there wasn't a backflow preventer, that could easily do this.
Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
I would'nt rule out the hoax possibility but in my experience these pipe-systems can be very counter-initutive, I had my toilet on the third floor spill water out on the floor during a major rainstorm back in the early 90's because of some kind of overflow in the drainage systems.
Solauren wrote:I'd like to see pictures of the outside of the apartment. Maybe security footage too.
Given how the article describes it, you'd think there would be injuries.
Supposedly, the entire population of the apartment building ran from an onslaught of ice from there water systems.
I'm sorry, that's really pushing it. One or two lower floor apartments near were the water comes into the building, I can see. But the entire apartment building?
And trying to cover it and sit on it with a board? That's the ultimate in 'Yeah right'.
Well, it seems it is true. This article (in German) is from a local newspaper and covers the story more extensively. It also has the address where it happened (and the address and name match with a search in the telephone book). This article is about the hailstorm itself and has a picture from outside. The ORF (the Austrian public service broadcaster) also has the story.
The people living in the apartment building are used to floodings from the toilet that apparently happen regularly as the pipes are too narrow. The title of the thread is a bit misleading, nobody was blasted from the toilet, and the person who tried to hold the ice back with the board was a woman who always uses this method with the water that usually comes out of the toilet.
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