Flooded Basement Anyone?

Oh where to start... SO Monday morning Josh got up to feed Gus around 5 am and heard the sound of rushing water, so he ran downstairs to the basement to find several inches of standing water already on the floor and water gushing in through our egress window (which was about 70 percent filled with water). Unfortunately Josh really WAS awake and this was not a nightmare.

He yelled for me to come downstairs and we started doing everything we could do under the circumstances. Rain was still pouring down and hence also pouring into the egress window, with a drain that was obviously plugged. Josh jumped into the window and started emptying it out with a bucket... as it continued to pour in. Since we are finishing the basement I got all the extra drywall that wasn't already ruined and anything else I could carry off the floor. I ran to the neighbors house and had him help me carry some furniture up and move a roll of carpet that was blocking the basement drain. And just when the rain stopped and Josh got the window emptied, we calmed down for a minute and it started raining again. The window was a quarter filled by the time Josh noticed and could begin emptying it again.

Once the storm stopped, we sucked the water out of the basement, and the 1/4 inch of mud that had somehow settled on the entire floor, even in the storage area behind the stairs, with a Shop Vac. A friend from the YMCA, Pat (you can check out his blog if you like) came over and helped us. Monday was a horrible day.

Yesterday we had a company clean out the drain, which was clogged with mud and cement somehow, and started working on the area of yard around the egress window. Much of the ground erroded around the window well and ended up in our basement, so we are building that back up. After tonight we will have laid 1000 pounds of dirt, put 200 pounds of rock in the egress window floor, extended our lanscaping several feet in the back, transplanted sod, planted grass seed and some bushes, and laid new mulch. All of this to fix the run off problem from the large hill behind our house before the four day rains come, starting tomorrow.

And, to top it all off, Gus is sick. He has his first official cold, with tons of congestion, coughs and cries. Josh and I talked last night, when we were still out working on the yard at 11 pm, about how it was only Tuesday but felt like a whole week had passed since the weekend.

Well, just thought you'd like an update. Here are a few pictures of Gus from a few minutes ago to brighten up this posting :)

Please keep up in your thoughts over these next few days and pray we don't get any more rain than we can handle.