By Mary Jane Maffini aka Victoria Abbott
In writing, 'what's the worst that could happen?' is a useful plotting tool for the author. In real life, not so much. So last week, we had record rainfall after a heavy snowfall, temperatures well over freezing and a power outage in January: what could go wrong with that?
If you said my finished basement could flood, you would be right on. Just as we were relaxing and curled up waiting to see the latest Downton Abby on PBS, the lights flickered ominously three or four times and went out.
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| Part of the basement in happier days! |
No biggie, we said, and lit a few candles in hurricane lamps.
The power company estimated two hours before service would
be restored. Again, no biggie. The house
was warm and dry and we could chat or nap. With luck, we’d see the episode
before midnight.
Eleven came and went and the moment we dread arrived. Water started to rise in what we call ‘the
pump room’. The pump room is that hideous little space where the sump pump works
to keep water out of the basement. It is
powered by electricity.
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| Mysterious and hideous, but VERY useful sump pump area. Try to imagine in it in the dark. |
Time to start bailing!
How long could that power be
off? No pix here. I never want to see another bucket again!
Each call to the power company resulted in a later
estimate. Never mind. Bail! Bail!
Bail! I became the bailer. I was glad I’d been lifting weights. The Hubster would take the buckets upstairs
and toss them out. He must have hauled
a hundred buckets. Meanwhile we filled huge storage buckets with water, but as
the hours rolled on and the temperature rose, the water came in faster and
faster.
By two forty five. we had lost count of buckets and the
water had reached the top of the sump pump opening. It didn’t matter how fast
we bailed, the water was faster. Soon it
crested and began a slow creep along the floor of the pump room and toward the
finished part of the basement. Bail! Bail! Bail! Too little, too late.
The water reached the carpeted area at three a.m. It had also begun to seep in other directions
toward other rooms. Perhaps I should
mention that our basement is finished, with an area to relax and watch TV and
space for guests, plus two office areas, but as I may have said, it is furnished mostly in books.
Thousands of them.
While I bailed and filled more large containers to try to
slow the spread, my husband raced from bookcase to bookcase taking everything
on the bottom shelves and stacking the books, papers, files on tables, chairs,
and desks. Where he could, he took the
actually wooden shelf as well. He worked
in the direction of the water spread and at high speed. We lifted up chairs and anything with a wood
bottom or legs. Computers, printers and other equipment were unplugged and
plunked somewhere safer.
This was all in relative darkness with flickering (and
formerly romantic) hurricane lamps. At
some point there was a lively discussion as to why we didn’t have a battery
back-up pump and a generator. Why indeed?
Just as the water reached across the first room and started
to spread into the furnace room, the
lights came on. Three thirty a.m.
We looked around at chaos.
Water had crept around the perimeter of one side of the basement and
reached walls behind the bookcases. In
the two bedroom areas, we lifted bed skirts and moved chairs.
We knew then we were too late to save the carpet and some of
the walls. We didn’t lose a single book
though, although some of the book cases are goners.
In the morning, a crew sent by the insurance company
arrived, a bit later than I would have expected. Apparently, we were not the only ones and we
weren’t the worst by a long shot. We had something to be thankful for. Their first job was to pack and label books
and stack them in a dry part of the basement. Good thing there was some space where the water hadn't reached. These boxes represent about half the books. All those that were still in a dry place will need to be moved to change the floor.
Their second job was to cut out the affected carpet and then to cut out
any drywall that the water had reached.
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I don’t envy them their job. It’s
a tough one and they are dealing with very stressed people as a rule. Because we hadn’t lost a single book or
picture, or even a piece of equipment, we were pretty agreeable. In fact, we’d
always hated that carpet which had been installed just before we put in an
offer on this house. Of course, we didn't hate it enough to change it.
Finally, giant dehumidifiers and blowers to brought in the make sure it all dried out.
No one was hurt. We were home and were able to limit the
damage by bailing and hauling water out. Our house is still standing, we have
other areas that we can work in and we know that many people are not lucky
enough to say that.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that we will now go though a few months
getting our place back to normal, there will be hammers and saws and nail guns
and workers and the thump of boots. Those are rarely
a writer’s favorite sounds. Everything will have to be packed and moved, once to fix walls and replace flooring and then back again.
The other good news is that we now have a generator, in case
Mother Nature decides to ‘bring it on’ again. It’s a big sucker and it’s now
rigged up so that it will be easy to switch to it if we have to, although first
it will need to be wheeled out of the porch and away from the house. Exhaust from generators has been fatal more
than once around this area, especially during the eight to ten days of power outage during the ice storm o 1998.
There’s a lot to be thankful for. I like the generator. It’s
a Champion and it has a heroic aspect to it. I think I’ll name it. Max? Thor? Godzilla? If you have a suggestion for a name, I’d love
to hear it.
Next we’ll pick up a pump with a back-up battery. Soon
(although not nearly soon enough) we will have new floors and repaired walls in
our basement.
Eventually we’ll get back to normal. You’ve seen some of the ‘before’ photos. Would
you like to see the afters when the time comes?
And now, how about you? Have you had a flood to contend with? How did you manage? I hope you were able to recover!
