Dave's Not Here

I decided to throw this page together to start documenting some of the fun stuff we’ve been going through this week.  Noah, eat your heart out.

Monday, September 21

We had about 6-8″ of water in our basement on Monday when I found it. I opened the door, and water rushed outside.  Did the water come from the toilet?  How could I have 6″ of water inside, and only 1″ outside?  I waded around and found the sump pump.  It was doing nothing.   I jiggled the pipe, and it kicked on.  Around noon we were down to about 1″ of water.  Tammy got home and was really depressed by everything.  So, we decided to go have some mexican food, completely against our Weight Watchers plan.  It cheered us up.

While we were having lunch, it started raining again.  Hard.  Like it does in Texas.  I then learned where the flood waters had come from.

Tons of water started coming in.  But, with the sump now working, we didn’t get more than about 1″ underwater, once the level got to the sump.    While Tammy was cleaning, she got electrocuted.  No, there weren’t any live wires.  Lightening struck really close to us, while she was standing in the puddled water.  She said she saw sparks fly from her hands.

The floor was almost dry by evening.  There were standing puddles, but nothing that an hour with my 3 gallon shop vac wouldn’t cure tomorrow.

Tuesday, September 22

First day of Autumn.  And, the suck continues.  Sometime overnight, it flooded again. I woke to 2″ of standing water, about 1″ deeper than the door outside. The sump pump had stalled again, so I jiggled it back to life. Now, water is running out the door, and being sumped away — don’t know how long it will take.

The dehumidifier keeps kicking the circuit.  It’s on the same breaker as my computer equipment & cable modem.  Just ran a cord to put it on another breaker.  Don’t really know why I have it on.  Until the floor is dry, it’s pretty much a waste.

Just found two full height racks on craigslist for free.  This will keep my equipment in the air, and away from floods in the future.  Yay!  Of course, I can’t go get them . . . . roads are flooded out between me and the guy giving them away.

Someone just sent me this — I have to post it.

11:00AM: I finally got the phone line back up.  I found a phone cable that was plugged into a jack, and laying on the ground.  Disconnected it, and the short went away — we have phones again!

It’s 11:30AM, and we’re below an inch again.  Back to puddles.  The sump is sucking air.  And, we have professionals coming to suck up the rest.  Cross your fingers for no more rain.

4:00PM: Water is gone.  Well — most of it.  There are no longer puddles, but everything is still wet.  I can smell the mold getting its foothold.  Need to run a chalk line, and take out the drywall 2′ and below.  That will be my project tomorrow.=

Wednesday, September 23rd

Things are finally drying out.  Carpet at base of stairs is dry.  I moved fans around to start drying some of the unfinished area.  I picked up two racks last night.  Still not sure how I’m going to configure them.  But, the rolling rack is going to go.

Casualties

I thought I’d draw up a list of casualties as we find them.  This post will probably be in flux this week.

Definitely Gone

• Drywall 2′ and below.  And molding.  Already starting to fall apart.
• UPS – So, now my computers keep rebooting due to brown outs.  Anyone have a spare 1500VA or two?
• Poker Table – It might have survived Monday, but, whatever it was sitting on became unstable when it started floating, and my poker table fell.  It was floating on 2″ of water this AM.  Dead.
• 10×8 Carpet
• Carpet at base of stairs.
• Tivo went out.  Re-seating the cable card fixed the normal functionality, but, HDMI output is still fuxxored.

Probably Gone

• Old School Unix Posters.  I only mention them because they’re probably not replaceable.
• 1-2 feet of drywall & molding.  Don’t know if it will survive
• Home Theater Subwoofer
• 2×12 Peavey Guitar Amp – Well — the speakers.  The amp should be fine.
• Kurzweil 88 key keyboard.
• Golf Bag
• Some X-Mas stuff in a soggy box.  (Not sure what’s in there)
• Sofa
• Ottoman – Is that how you spell it, or is that the empire?