Toilet eruptions

The house is worth about $101,000, but it may cost the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, more than that to clean it up.

Homeowner Meg McCormick said it sounded like an elephant belching and looked like a small oil well had been struck.

There was a grease clog in a sewer line near her house, and workers used a high-pressure hose to blast it open. It blew all the black gook back into McCormick's house, creating a geyser of sewage spraying from her toilet bowl.

The eruption lasted 55 minutes, leaving 4 inches of sludge in the house.

City officials said they'll gut, repair, and clean up the house.