While the truck is on the way, do these four things
- Cut water going down the FOG lines. Stop the dish pit if you can — every gallon pushes more grease past a full trap into your lateral line.
- Do not flush with hot water. It moves the clog deeper, re-hardens further down the line where it’s costlier to reach — and pushing grease through with hot water above 140°F is explicitly prohibited by parish ordinance (Sec. 2:272(8)).
- Do not dose chemicals or enzymes. Same section, same prohibition — and it converts your overflow into a compliance problem.
- Clear a path to the trap. The single biggest time-saver when the truck arrives.
What the emergency visit includes
Full evacuation of all contents (the legal standard here, and the only kind of pump-out that actually resets a backed-up trap), wall and baffle scrape-down, an inlet/outlet check to confirm the blockage isn’t downstream of the trap, and the manifest plus dated receipt your compliance file needs — because an emergency that leaves paperwork behind is the difference between an incident and a citation.
Straight talk on emergency pricing
After-hours and holiday callouts carry surcharges everywhere — one former Baton Rouge provider published $150–$250 emergency premiums, and that’s representative. The cheapest emergency remains the one a schedule prevents: a right-sized interval costs less per year than one Friday-night overflow. If you’re reading this mid-crisis, skip the lecture and call (225) 327-1077; ask about scheduled service after the water goes down.