Rebuilt After the 2018 Tornado? It's a Good Time to Check Your Septic System

The EF3 tornado that hit Marshalltown on July 19, 2018 damaged or destroyed homes and buildings across several residential blocks near downtown, and many of those properties have since been repaired, rebuilt, or renovated. What often gets missed during a rebuild is the septic system underneath it all: heavy equipment traffic during construction, changes to grading or drainage around the property, and a renovation that adds a bathroom or increases household size can all affect a system that was sized and installed years or decades earlier. If your home went through repair or rebuilding work after 2018 and the septic tank hasn't been inspected since, it's a reasonable time to have it checked, both to confirm the system wasn't disturbed during construction and to make sure it's still sized correctly for how the house is used now. This applies whether the system is original to a mid-century home or was already replaced at some point before the storm.