Flood 2013 part 2

The Great Flood of 2013 (part 2)

You can see me in the window well with towels damming up the sides to prevent water from coming in, which isn't working very well given the water marks coming down the walls.

So after they brought the fans back, we had the great storm night. We realized that the drain in the window well was blocked or non-functioning as it appeared to fill up in a matter of seconds.

So I spent the better part of the night chucking buckets of water out of the window well to alleviate the submersible pump that was in literally over its head (i.e. the inflow of water was too much for the little submersible engine that could and the water level continued to rise).

At about 2am, after I had been bailing buckets of water for the better part of an hour, I thought to myself, this is not sustainable :) So I called Heaven Sent in the middle of the night to see if they had a larger pump to get the water out of the window well. So Keith came over at 2am with his industrial strength pump (these guys were making so much money off the owners, you just had to laugh or feel sorry or both). And that pump was impressive, it had a big ol' firehose for all the water to exit. As he set the pump down in the well with the water filling up, he says to me, "stand back, she's thirsty!" I have to say, I was laughing my head off at that point. Certain things are just funnier when you're talking with a guy at 2am in the pouring/freezing rain in your backyard up to your ankles in dirty rain water. I told Gretta and Eliza this story and they get such a kick from recounting that the pump was thirsty!

In all we've had a dull hum in our basement for nearly two weeks now from fans continuously blowing in our basement. I shudder to think what our electric bill will be this month! The final resolution will come when they come dig out the window well you see below, replace the drainage tile and check the drainage piping to ensure the water is able to flow all the way to the sump pump.

That will be a happy day indeed!

Until the next great flood...