The Great Flood Of 2009

"Get up! The basement is flooding!"

That's the first thing I heard yesterday morning at 6:30am. My alarm wasn't set to go off for another 15 minutes, but Mike was already awake. He had taken Shandi out to pee and when he came back inside, he noticed a dark spot in front of the closet at the bottom of our stairs. He thought at first maybe one of the cats had had an accident. When he got to the bottom of the stairs, he uttered his first swear words of the day. There were many, many more to follow.

Without even checking the basement, I phoned my dad and asked if he could come over. After hanging up, I don't even think I had underwear on when I flew down to the basement to check out the damage. I had barely surveyed the scene when my eyes fell on my treasure trunk on the floor. This trunk holds all of my childhood and teenage memories...100% irreplaceable. With total disregard for my pregnancy, I started to pick it up to move it to higher ground. Mike grabbed it and put it on the nearby armchair. I began the rest of my survey.

Our bathroom, laundry room and spare bedroom were totally flooded. At least an inch of water covered the floor in each room. Our laundry room is also our storage room and when I realized all the boxes on the floor were soaked, I started to panic when I couldn't see my box of Sweet Valley Twins books (while these are replaceable, it would take a lot of work to replace the entire series). I found the books in a plastic tub up on a higher shelf. Phew. One crisis averted at least :-)

And so began our long, long day of removing the water and hauling out soaked boxes and flooring. The first order of business was to get rid of all the water that had accumulated at the back of the house, outside. Thank god for shop vacs. While Mike was up on the roof making sure the eavestrough were cleared (it had been raining non-stop for over 24 hours), Dad began to suck the water out of the low lying spots next to the house. When the vacuum was full, the water was dumped at the back of our yard, down a little hill.

Once the yard was clear, the inside work began. And it was only 8:00am. Mike sucked up the water off the cement or lino floors with the shop vac. I started to mop up the water out of the bathroom and spare room. It was going to take forever with a dinky little mop. Then I got the bright idea to use our carpet shampoo-er. That sped things up a bit, but it was still a looooooong day of sucking water out. The little container that holds the water only held about 6 liters. It was filling up every. two. minutes. Out of our 1200 square foot basement, there was only about 300 sq. feet left untouched by water. And we crammed all our basement possessions into that 300 square feet (not the stuff that was already up on shelves though). By noon, we had sucked out over 700 litres of water. And there were still many, many dumpings from the wet/dry vac.

Mike checking the eaves at 7:00am.

I didn't want to watch Mike climb back down the ladder but figured I should...just in case I needed to give details to 9-1-1.

Mike and Dad vacuuming out the yard. There's something you never think you'll ever have to do :-)

The beginnings of the water creeping out under the carpet. It only got worse as the day went on.


















All the stuff from the spare room and the floor of the laundry room. Most had water "damage" but should dry with time.



















In front of the dresser is a chunk of wood. Under that wood is a pipe. This pipe continued to flood and let in more water as the day went on. It was only when the rain finally stopped in late afternoon that the pipe quit flooding.
















The spare bedroom (that we never did finish the flooring on...thankfully!). All of my mom's teaching supplies and books that she passed on to me were in this room. Crappity crap crap! And, yes, that's our Christmas tree still up with the lights and ribbon on it...it's just easier this way :-)

















Our furnace/laundry room...you can see the water creeping out passed the water heater.



















All our boxes looked like this.




















This last pic was taken just before lunch. The water continued to seep out another four feet in all directions. It was just never ending.






















A short video of me splashing in the rain water. Kind of surreal to be inside though.


All in all, it could have been a lot worse. At least it wasn't sewage. Or a fire. And it's not like anybody was hurt. If we can get the carpet dry and suck the water out from under the laminate in Colby's room (any tips on how to do that??) then damage will be minimal. At the very most, we may have to fork out money to repair all the flooring (it's not worth putting in an insurance claim). And we definitely have to build up around the outside foundation. I am just so thankful we weren't away on holidays.