The next 30 minutes
1. Stop feeding it. Halt dishwashing and anything sending water
down grease lines. An overflowing trap is a bathtub with the tap running.
2. Contain, don’t hose. Squeegee and absorbent (kitty litter
works) toward a mop sink — never hose grease toward a floor drain or, worse,
outside toward a storm drain, which converts a mess into an environmental violation.
3. Call for an emergency pump-out —
(225) 327-1077. Nothing else on this list resets the
trap.
4. Photograph everything. Time-stamped photos of the trap, the
overflow, and your last service receipt — if this turns into an insurance claim
or an inspector conversation, the record is worth more than the mop.
5. Keep staff clear and floors flagged. Grease-slick floors injure
people; that’s a worse night than the overflow.
After the truck leaves
An overflow is a symptom of an interval that’s too long — the trap hit its ceiling before the schedule said so. Recalculate it honestly (the calculator, using your real covers), log the incident and the pump-out in your records, and if the parish or the health department comes asking, here’s the citation playbook.