A winter blizzard like the one that sucker-punched Wareham and the South Coast earlier this month can make one appreciative of the modern comforts one may have come to take for granted.

Electricity. Heat. Passable roads. Flushing the toilet.

During the blizzard, a total of 35 of Wareham’s 44 sewer pumping stations lost electricity and had to be run on generator power.

To explain, Water Pollution Control Facility Director Guy Campinha pointed to the murky depths of the South Water Street pumping station in Onset, where the station's smelly cargo passes through on its way to the wastewater treatment plant.

“Once it gets to a point where it’s higher than the street, it backs up,” on to the street... and sometimes into people’s bathrooms, Campinha explained.

With the generators burning two to three gallons of fuel per hour, the storm kept Campinha and his staff on their toes.

“We have to constantly refuel," he explained. "It gets tense because it’s constant.”

Nine staffers worked hard to keep the sewage in the system during the storm, Campinha said.

“We had two-man shifts overnight, then split up the rest,” he explained. “It’s a safety issue; I can’t put one guy by himself."

In addition to staying in contact with his staff, Campinha had to keep the Massachusetts Department of Environmental protection updated on the situation.

“If a drop of sewage gets out, we need to let them know," he said.

With electricity restored and the pumping stations up and running, there is another sewer-related issue caused by the storm: Three manhole covers were damaged due to plowing.

Whether it’s clearing the roads or keeping the pumping stations online, nothing is easy when Mother Nature decides to hit you with a blizzard.

“It can’t be helped,” said Campinha. “It’s just the nature of the storm.”