Flooding

I don't know when, I don't know how...but at some point I think we must have angered the water gods something fierce.

One day in late April I was driving home from picking up Julianne at a rehearsal when I got a panicked call from Rebekah informing me that there was water gushing into Julianne's room through the window. She was frantically trying to save Julianne's belongings that were on the floor and the dresser that was under said window...and stuff towels into the window sill to staunch the flow. I instructed her to run outside and see if by chance a hose had been turned on and left running...we still weren't sure where the water was gushing from.

Bryan and I got home about the same time and between the two of us and the next door neighbor Rebekah had called in for reinforcements, we ran around from inside to out and back in again determining the source of the water so we could stop it, and bailing the standing water from the window well.

Turns out the city irrigation water had been turned on that day. The pressure of the water had been stronger than in past years and had pushed its way through with such force that one of the T pipes in the box near Juilanne's window had burst.

What a soggy mess. We called a disaster recovery company and they showed up with specialized water hoses and fans. The water had reached every corner of Julianne's room, into Rebekah's closet on the other side of the wall and a little way into the hall. Furniture got relocated into various rooms in the basement...mostly the family room, carpet got pulled up so the pad could be discarded, the water hose sucked as much water as possible out of that saturated carpet, and multiple fans were turned on to dry things out. All of this while Julianne bravely picked through her wet and soggy books, journals, ticket stubs and programs and other such belongings that been on the dresser or on the floor of her bedroom. And did I mention all the laundry to be done? Because Julianne's room had not been clean at the time and many of the contents of her closet were on the floor rather than hanging up as they should have been....

It's a story I have heard countless times from others....who hasn't had some kind of water damage in their homes at one time or another? Maybe it was just our turn? (I'll maybe leave out mention of the basement flood we had living in Magna....because after all, that was a really long time ago and maybe we were just due.)

But then last Monday Julianne made a horrifying discovery in the backyard man cave. She went out to row, she said. Who knew it would end up being so literal? Four inches of standing water throughout the entire building. Gymnastics mats floating like rafts, camping gear soaking up water, baseboards warping. Luckily we did not have to deal with carpet this time...the flooring is colored and polished concrete. (Though it will have to be re-finished.)

Julianne called her Dad immediately and then came in to inform me of the disaster. We discovered that the water had come from the field behind us. The farmer had been trying to deal with some dry spots near our fence and had left the sprinklers on all night long. He and his wife were horrified when we informed them of what had happened. They hustled over and spent quite a bit of time helping us with the sump pump and the clean-up inside. And it did take all day. Because not only did we have to haul out all of those (extremely heavy) water logged mats, camping equipment and other soggy items to dry out on the back lawn...but then pump out the water. We pumped about 1/3 of of it straight out of the front door and onto the dry spots in our own lawn. We then dropped the pump into the sump pump hole and shot it out under the back fence, through the farmers original sprinkler pipes and out further back into his field.

Bryan said it was an opportunity....when asked why the first thing he did after arriving home to survey the mess was to take a few shots into the water at the backstop.

But it took a lot of time to pump out the water because it turns out the floor of the building is not exactly flat. And so though we have two drains....the water was pooling in various low areas throughout the room and we spent a lot of effort pushing the water towards the drains, and continuously making sure those drains didn't get clogged with odds and end detritus floating in the water.

We ran fans all night long. But woke to find more puddles the next day....left over water that had collected under the building and was still finding ways to seep up through the floor. We spent the next few days checking every few hours that the pump was indeed on and working, and mopping up any extra water.

I kind of feel that we've had more than our fair share of flooding and water damage over the past few months. But if that weren't enough....the same night as our man cave flood, our kitchen sink stopped up and started leaking into the cupboard below. And when we went to visit Rebekah's soon-to-be new apartment in Logan last week, we found the carpet pulled back and fans blowing there because of a slight flood due to someone leaving on a hose just outside her basement apartment window.

Anyone know what kind of chants or prayers to say, dances to perform or gifts to bring to appease the water gods? Because I am so done!