Flooding story…

What a Week!

This has been one of the craziest weeks I have ever had to deal with! Get your seat-belts on for this roller coaster ride people!

A little over a month ago, I went to the Chicago RV and Boat show to look at a Rockwood 8314ss Travel Trailer. After viewing it, we decided that we wanted it and so we bought one! Fast forward to a few weeks later, (two weeks from today) and there I am in the middle of one of the coldest days of the year here in Northern Illinois digging my old trailer out of my yard so I can trade it in. It was zero degrees out with a wind chill of minus thirty! Brrrr, it was cold! I’m sure my neighbors thought I was crazy to be out there snow-blowing my yard.

Now, to last weekend; last Saturday to be exact. There I am in my drive-way cleaning my old trailer out and getting it all ready to trade in. We were scheduled to go to the dealer on Wednesday and pick the new Rockwood up. Meanwhile, I was also in the process of negotiating a trade of my ’98 Chevy Tahoe for a ’01 Ford Excursion and so I made arrangements to look at that on Friday.

Now…..last Sunday is when the bottom dropped out! We already had about a foot of snow on the ground when Mother Nature decided to warm things up and drop two to three inches of rain rather quickly. The small town that I live in had plowed the snow through this winter but in doing so, covered the storm drains. During this rain, the water could not make it into the retention pond just two blocks from my house so it came to the lowest part of my neighborhood it could find…..my yard!

I have two crawl spaces, both tiled and with their own sump pits. The one crawl space that the water was up against first inundated the sump pit and the pump just could not keep up! It wasn’t long when water overflowed the pit and filled the crawl. Unfortunately, we were using that space for storage of some of my son’s childhood stuff. It was almost all in plastic cases, but they just floated and dumped making quite a mess. Then the water overflowed into the basement creating a waterfall.

The other crawls pump failed completely and when the water was surrounding my house, it wasn’t long before that crawl overflowed and there I was with two waterfalls into the basement. The basement pump kept up, but at its peak, we had up to six inches of water in the basement and a foot of water in each crawl.

The good news about this story at this point is my old trailer that I had pulled out of my yard was in the driveway where there was only about three inches of water. If I hadn’t pulled it out of my yard the week before, the trailer would have been flooded for sure!

Back in ’96, here in the Midwest, there was a deluge of rain….something like thirteen inches in twelve hours. This area was in horrible shape. I actually lost a basement wall in that one. Well, after that, and after the repairs were completed, I purchased flood insurance and have kept it ever since. So, Sunday I called my insurance to file a flood claim and I called Service Master to get here ASAP to clean the mess. If you have never been in a flood, expediency is very important because it does not take long for the mold and mildew to take effect! I also called the local garbage company for a small dumpster. By the way, both the insurance company and Service Master responded that evening. They were great!

Meanwhile, as the day progressed, the water was trying to recede ever so slow. I realized that the worst was over as far as water rising, but the water was not leaving my yard. This was because the ground was still frozen and the storm drains were still jammed. So, I did what anyone might do under these circumstances….I called the mayor of our town!

I explained the situation and told him that since the water that was supposed to be in the retention pond was now in my yard, perhaps he could get the Fire Department or someone to pump this water out of my yard and down two blocks to the retention pond. Within about 15 minutes, the mayor showed up, then the Fire Department and finally the Streets Department.

The Streets Department brought a 20,000 gallon pumper truck! They pumped out my yard four times….that’s 80,000 gallons! Each time they pumped it only took about five minutes. They then drove over to the pond and dumped it there. That brought the water down about six inches but more importantly it took the water off my foundation and then it wasn’t long before the pumps all caught up. Then the temperature dropped and everything frozen solid. My yard is still an ice skating rink!

I finally crashed Sunday night and woke up at about 5am on Monday to the sound of the garbage company dropping that dumpster. At 7:30 am, the plumber called and told me I needed to get the crawl where the pump failed pumped out before he would work on it. So, I was off. I needed to find a utility surface pump. It is just one of those small ones where you hook a garden hose up to it. I drove to my local hardware store, but no luck….there was a run on pumps the day before. I then go to Wal-Mart and same thing….they were out too. Finally, in the next town, I find one.

While connecting that pump, Service Master stopped by to assess the situation. They decide to come back on Tuesday to get started on cleaning. Once I got that going, I called my local garbage company and asked for a small dumpster. Meanwhile, the plumber stopped over and replaced the defective pump since I had cleared most of the water from that crawl. The only thing that I could do at that point was to put fans in the basement to get the air moving….another important thing to do in the event of a flood.

Now, my son and I started on the real dirty and sad work of going through the flooded stuff and tossing most of it. It was sad for my son (he is 17 now) but to have to throw away a bunch of his childhood stuff really was difficult for both of us. We had the dumpster filled and had at least a dozen contractor bags around the dumpster by the time we finished working at around 9pm on Monday.

Tuesday, I was up with the sound of the garbage truck emptying the dumpster. I called them and aksed them to come twice a day until I advised otherwise to empty that dumpster. At around 10:30 am, Service Master showed up and the real work began! We completed the tossing of stuff that we could not save and they got to work with their specialty. They cleared any standing water and sprayed mildew-a-cide (not sure if that’s how it’s spelled) and they left about six blowers and an industrial dehumidifier.

Wednesday was my rest day from all this! Undaunted by the previous few days, we went ahead with our plan to go pick-up our new Rockwood travel trailer! It was a great reprieve from the week’s events. After all that trouble, we could finally look forward to something exciting! We got the trailer home and crashed for the night.

Thursday, I was working from home. My boss for my ‘day job’ is really great and since I am a computer geek, I am able to work from home if/when I need to. I worked the morning and then at about 1:30pm, the insurance adjuster showed and we spent about two hours going over everything. He really was a kind guy and it made me think about how these folks really see a lot of bad stuff in their travels! I don’t think I could do that. After he left, Service master stopped by to take some moisture readings and to re-position the fans.

I decided to take Friday as a vacation day so I could drive about 150 miles to look at that Excursion. I arrived there at just after 9am and they already had the truck warmed up. It was all I wanted and it wasn’t long before I was driving home with my new (to me) Ford Excursion! Then, in the late afternoon, Service Master came by and picked-up their gear….their job was finished.

That brings us to today. It is Saturday night, the23rd and my due date for my blog is Sunday morning. I really didn’t know what I was going to write about but then I told my wife I would write about this week!

Today, we packed all the stuff from our old trailer into the new trailer. My wife wanted me to put some hooks up to hang things like oven mitts, etc. It was quite refreshing to be able to spend some time in the trailer. I even put an episode of Columbo on while we toiled away!

All in all, we are in good shape! Nobody was hurt. Our feelings were a little bruised, but we are coming through this okay. I received a call from the insurance adjuster and the totals that he calculated helps matters even more!

So…that was my week! Crazy, but just one of those times that is like a pinch to show we are alive! I am not looking for sympathy, but I just wanted to share this story with you and hope that it turns out like the Murphy’s Law blog that I wrote in an earlier entry. We will laugh about this as time progresses just as we have about the ’96 floods.

Our first camping trip for this year is just four weeks out and we can’t wait to use the new trailer and the new tow vehicle! I am certain that the troubles of this past week are almost behind us and I will be writing about our new adventures in our new setup! I am already trying to talk my wife into camping in the driveway!

Happy Camping and see you next Sunday!