The Year of the Floods

The 2008 year is shaping up to be one of a number of floods. Lately that's been one of the top stories this week.

Dennis' and my new rental property suffered a bit of water backing up into an office from all the rain the other day. I think we found the problem there as water from the downspout was draining too close to the building. That was easily correctable.

But the big flood that I encountered was last week and wasn't even caused by rain. Last Friday, I awoke and went straight to take a shower. Beth came in later, not for a little fun, but somewhat panicked, told me to hurry and rinse off. I first thought we had to leave immediately because someone got hurt, killed or some other emergency. No, she said she had to shut the water off. A pipe had burst in the laundry room and was leaking all over the place. I relaxed after that... only a minor emergency I thought.

I started drying off and then realized that the laundry room was directly over the basement guest room. If the water had been running for some time, water would probably leak to the basement. On the closet shelf directly under the laundry room is where I kept my Grandpa Harvey's and my Dad's guitars. These guitars are 50 years old, worth a lot of money and most importantly, what I consider family heirlooms. I quit drying off. I wrapped the towel around me and bolted downstairs.

When I got down there, it looked like it was raining. Sure enough, water was dripping down from the laundry room upstairs. I feared the worst. Walking through the freezing water now drenched into the leopard-print carpeting, I went to get the guitars. Surprisingly, there was not a drop of water on them (even though they were in cases). The shelf was recessed back far enough to where the surface tension of the walls sent the water in the opposite direction. I felt much better now. The guitars are safely tucked away in my office.

I then called a plumber, insurance agent and Menold's Restoration. We picked up a wet/dry vac to get the place cleaned up and put fans all over the place. We now have a commercial dehumidifier and even more fans in place. In all, the damage looks minimal and the risk of mold is pretty low... I'm told. Some of the base boards and/or door frames took some water stains and that is probably the biggest damage. Some of the dry wall will need to be repaired/replaced and we'll probably open up some of the basement ceiling to ensure there's no water or mold. It might require tearing up some wallpaper in the basement bathroom. Beth is hoping it doesn't have to come to that.

In all, I think we got lucky because that could have easily happened when we were away for a period of time. And that is our flood story of 2008.