When it rains, it pours (part 2)
This is a quick, but long-overdue followup to my 06/26/2006 post, “When it rains, it pours.”
There are all kinds of things I could say about this, but the task of putting it all into words has been kind of daunting. So, I’m just going to post the emails that I sent to my coworkers and school learning team members when I was dealing with water mitigation/cleanup/etc, and link to the 300+ pictures that I took along the way…
Email to Work #1 (06/26/2006 1:46am):
Basement flooded tonight due to nonstop heavy rain.. yard is saturated, sump pump couldn’t keep up.. other drainage not efficient either, so water is coming in from at least 3 locations. After spending all evening/night recovering from the initial flooding, now the sump pump has given out completely, so I’m dreading what the night will bring. I will probably not get any work done tomorrow either, as I try to salvage/clean things and deal with kids and stuff.
Email to Work #2 (06/27/2006 11:38am):
Yesterday, I fought with the rain as long as I could, carrying 10gal shopvac buckets full of nasty water from my storm drain up the outside walk-out stairs, while the rain just kept pouring down, and throwing it out in the yard, but in the end, I did not make a very good sump pump replacement. So the water started pouring in from the sump pump pit and the outside storm drain, and quickly filled the whole basement with 1-2″ of water.At some point I gave up on getting the water out, and switched modes to salvaging whatever belongings I could. I spent all day yesterday dealing with that, and eventually, in the late afternoon, a plumber made it out and replaced the sump pump. So now there’s no more flooding happening, and hopefully it will survive the high quantities of rain we’re supposed to get tonight, but I still have a lot to deal with down there, especially washing and drying all the clothes/towels/blankets/etc. that were down there, and trying to suck up as much water out of the carpet as possible.
We’ve got water mitigation people coming on Friday night–that was the soonest anyone could come out–but in the meantime we need to do as much as we can, ourselves, because it’s going to get pretty gross between now and Friday.
Anyways, I’m going to have to take today off as well, in case that wasn’t already assumed. Hope to be there tomorrow. As long as the new sump pump can keep up with tonight’s rain, that should be possible.
Email to Learning Team #1 (06/26/2006 8:01am):
hey guys.. Basement flooded last night due to nonstop heavy rain.. yard is saturated, sump pump couldn’t keep up.. other drainage not efficient either, so water is coming in from at least 3 locations. After spending all evening/night recovering from the initial flooding, now the sump pump has given out completely, so I’m glad to see that the rain has stopped for now. Gotta try to salvage/clean things and deal with kids and stuff today, and try to find a replacement sump pump (probably in short supply now), a shop vac (borrowed a neighbor’s but need our own), and a plumber to heavy-duty-snake out our storm drain…
Email to Learning Team #2 (06/26/2006 3:08pm):
yeah, I thought yesterday was bad. now we’ve got over 1″ through the entire basement, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.i bought lots of stuff at the hardware stuff this morning, but nothing i bought is any match for the continuing rain. plumber should be here soon to replace the sump pump, but there’s concern that he may not be able to do that since it’s immersed in several feet of water and all.. i hope he has some kind of pump, but the lady on the phone didn’t seem to think so. if it can’t be replaced today, i will be crafting a homemade water pump->pipe->sprayer solution.
Email to Learning Team #3 (06/27/2006 12:17pm):
sorry for my silence.. been working on basement water issues all day
and late into the night. i will really try to get my part done today.
Email to Learning Team #4 (06/27/2006 12:21pm):
Oh, but the good news is that the plumber WAS able to replace the sump pump, so at this point it’s a cleanup/salvage effort only, and I’m no longer trying to act as a manual sump pump. :) Let’s just hope that this pump holds up during the heavy rains tonight, since we’re supposed to be in for another doozy.
Here are the pictures:
http://www.oatmealcookies.org/pictures/2006/2006_06_25/
http://www.oatmealcookies.org/pictures/2006/2006_06_26/
http://www.oatmealcookies.org/pictures/2006/2006_06_27/
http://www.oatmealcookies.org/pictures/2006/2006_06_28/
http://www.oatmealcookies.org/pictures/2006/2006_06_30/
http://www.oatmealcookies.org/pictures/2006/2006_07_01-basement/
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August 19th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
those links were really hard to click :)
Hopefully your house situation can be resolved quicker than 3 years. :)
http://www.oatmealcookies.org/pictures/2006/2006_06_28/m_img_6750.jpg - we used a similar fan for our tiny, 5-to-10-gallon flood. (mold test came back positive)
July 2nd, 2007 at 11:05 am
[…] the most recent one. I’ll have to do that soon. Here’s what I did post, though: one, two, three, […]
September 21st, 2007 at 7:18 am
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