The morning before we left for California at the end of February for Andrew's wedding, we woke up to a flooded basement. Basically we had 2 feet of snow melting due to really heavy rains. It created the perfect storm of water that, due to the landscaping in our backyard, all flowed to under our deck. There was a river under our deck that was high enough to go over the wood surrounding our cellar door. Since the cellar door is not sealed to the ground for some reason, the water just flowed right through where the cellar door meets the ground, down the wall, and through our door in the basement. You could literally hear it flowing.
So here I am stressing about packing for our trip to find out half of our basement is covered in an inch of water. And it's not like we don't use our basement. We have all of Richard's office, musical instruments, and a beautiful desk down there. We weren't sure what to do at first, because it was still flowing and was supposed to rain all day and the next. How were we supposed to keep it under control if we were leaving town?
I called my friend Jenn who lives 10 minutes away. As I told her our basement was flooded I just broke into tears. She offered to come over right away and watch Miles as we figured out what to do. It made such a huge difference to have her help! So Richard went to Home Depot and bought a shop vac to start cleaning up the water. Well it filled up the huge tank in about 30 seconds and he would have to empty it in the washing machine. It was going to take forever. We thought maybe our landlord would pay to have someone clean up the mess for us, but we made some calls and it was going to be a few thousand dollars and they couldn't come until it stopped flowing anyways. So Richard went back to Home Depot and got a pump and hose to attach to the shop vac so he wouldn't have to empty the tank every time it filled up. That did the trick! By the time he got back the rain had slowed enough that it was no longer flowing in our basement and Richard was able to make huge progress. We moved everything to the other side of the basement, he cleaned up all of the water, and then he rented 2 large fans for drying up the basement.
As Richard worked on the basement I finished up everything with my work. Then Jenn graciously offered to take Miles in the afternoon and watch him and feed him dinner. I was then able to pack for our trip. And my other friend Afton brought us over a yummy dinner and chocolate! It was so wonderful, because we didn't have any food left in the house since we were leaving on a trip, and we had been so busy we hadn't eaten anything all day. Then our neighbors Ron and Diane offered to come check on the basement while we were gone and move the fans around to dry it out.
Even though it was so stressful at the time, everything worked out, and it reminded me how lucky we are to have wonderful friends and neighbors. Even without family nearby, we feel very loved and supported. It really made all the difference, and we were able to leave the next morning at 6:30am for the airport with peace of mind. Plus, imagine if it had flooded the next day. It would have been a million times worse, and we would have come home to a much bigger mess! When you look at the big picture, we really were lucky.
PS Our landlord is working on getting the problem fixed.
What we woke up to
That is the door the water was coming in through
Thank goodness most of our things are on shelves in plastic bins
Good thing those were last semester's papers. Eh, I had been wanting Richard to clean those up for awhile. Guess this helped!
Some better pictures, once we moved our stuff
The water flowing in where the cellar door (red) and ground meet. It came down the wall and through the door into our basement.
My sweet husband who never got flustered or upset once, all while I am a mess. He missed class and cleaned up the whole thing. Love you!
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