Preparedness Pays: Flooding

Well, last night proved that preparedness always pays. Sometimes in multiple ways.

The house where I rent my room is an older home, a duplex my landlord bought from a relative. The design was very popular in the late 1930s/1940s: drives ran down both sides of the house and there were steep drops down to garages in the basement. There is no real back yard on ours, only paved surface. Which means, given terrain and the steep drop, that water tends to flood down the slope and towards the garages.

There is a trench at the bottom connected to the sewer drain that is supposed to handle things; but, even after replacing the sewer line out to the property line it is easily overwhelmed. So, my landlord put an emergency sump pump in it that activates when the water gets to a certain depth. The pipe actually runs up our drive and to a point where the water runs away from the house and to the street (and the storm drains).

A couple of lines of severe storms rolled through last night, with the first being the worst. I was in my room and heard some commotion out in the other part of the basement so got up to see what was going on.

Turns out, someone (and we all know who) had unplugged the sump pump for some reason and forgot to plug it back in. That had been fixed by the time I joined the housemate and landlord, but water was coming in under the garage door and was flooding that end of the basement. I quickly got on the rubber muck boots I had bought a few weeks ago for another project, and quickly joined in on the bailing effort.

Thankfully, between the rain finally letting up a small bit and the sump pump getting going, we limited how much got in and how far it got. Between buckets and a floor squeegee, we got pretty much all the water out. By this morning it was mostly dry in that area.

Four different areas of preparedness came into play last night: proactive checking by the landlord and/or housemate; sump pump in the trench (when plugged in); buckets, bins, and floor squeegee, etc.; and, waterproof (and electrically resistant) boots. The response was a defense in layers with backups. Six years ago, the water actually came back up the sewer lines and that was fun! I actually have sand bags to drop over the big floor drain just in case that ever starts to happen again. Having the light pair of rubber boots I could get into quickly got me into the fray quickly and kept me dry. Or at least my feet.

So remember: make your plans and have multiple layers in place so that if one doesn’t go as planned, you have means to limit the damage. Might be time for me to suggest an emergency generator the landlord again so we can keep the sump pump running, and the refrigerators/freezers going, if the power goes out.

Be prepared. Keep your family and friends close, and your things where you can find them in the dark.

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Getting hit by lightning is not fun! It is thanks to your gifts and prayers that I am still going. If you would like to help me with seminary courses, pilgrimages, and more, feel free to hit the fundraiser at A New Life on GiveSendGo, use the options in the Tip Jar in the upper right, or drop me a line to discuss other methods. There is also the Amazon Wish List in the Bard’s Jar. Thank you.