It's gonna be the meanest flood anybody's seen."
- "Down in the Flood," Bob
It was 3:45 a.m. and I had just gotten home from work. I opened the door to the basement, turned on the light, and walked down the stairs.
Oh, no.
soggy basement
About a foot of water. Everywhere. The entire length and breadth of the basement, covered. An indoor lake. A groundwater swimming pool.
Anything that was on the floor was soaked, possibly ruined.
I had worried about flooding since it had rained more than a week steady here in CT. (Later, we would learn it was the second-rainiest month on record, second only to August 1955, when the remnants of two hurricanes flooded this state, killing 87 people.) I don't know if the sump pump failed or if it had been overwhelmed. But there it was.
"911, what's your emergency?"
Funny. Driving home I had been behind a truck from Tunxis Hose Company No. 1, the volunteer department that serves our part of town. "They must have been busy tonight, I thought.
Before I knew it Rescue 15 was outside my door, setting up shop for the umpteenth basement pump-out of the evening.
firefighter in basement
Let me tell you something: These guys had been going all night ... they could have been surly and tired and I would have understood. But they were professional and treated our call like it was the first of the night, not the last. They rocked.
They were done by about 5, leaving Michelle and I to sort through what got wet and see what we could salvage.
Some stuff got ruined. But other items ... including my journal of Michelle's pregnancy and the first card she ever gave me, were saved. It was hit and miss.
Dad drove down from Massachusetts that morning with a wet-dry vac, some fans and a dehumidifier. We got most of it cleaned out and on the road to dryness, and if there was a bright side, it was this: the basement is a lot cleaner and more organized.
Things to do: Get a new sump pump.
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