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If you live around here, chances are you are wet. Since last night it has been pouring. I mean seriously, super-heavy downpours. Dumpings. Tons and tons of water dropped on our house.
Well, the floodgates finally opened.
At about 3:45, I noticed it was still raining really hard outside, and there was a persistent thought in my head that I should go down and check on the basement, and start vacuuming stuff up with the ShopVac. It was fine the last time I had checked, but I just thought I should go.
When I got down there, just a bit more water had seeped into our one trouble spot in the corner. But, since I was there, I started getting the water out of the carpet. I sucked water out of the rugs for about 12-15 min or so, till the container filled up. I took it out to dump it and it was SUPER DUPER POURING. Like never before. Tons of rain. So, I jumped out in it and dumped the contents of the ShopVac. Jen and the kids had also just come home. So they came to see what was going on.
When I went back down, the floodgates seriously let loose.
All of a sudden from the opposite direction, a massive amount of water (compared to the NONE that was there only moments ago!) start flooding toward me. Before I know it, the container is full again! That started an insane couple hours. From 4:00pm till about 5:05pm, I was emptying one 5-gallon container per MINUTE.
You may be thinking that at 5:05pm, it slowed down and everything stopped. WRONG. From 5:05pm to about 5:50pm, I was emptying 5-gallons about every 45 seconds!!!!!! OH MY GOODNESS!! Add to that all the towels we were putting down, wringing out, and then dropping in the washer for a quick spin cycle. Add to that the mop and other bucket I was doing during the 20 seconds it took to fill the ShopVac.
Add all that, and my back sorta hurts.
From 5:50-6:10pm, it slowed back down to about 5-gallons every 90 seconds, and things have finally slowed a bit. At least the water is all in one place. About 1/5 of our basement is under about 1 inch of water. But it’s not raining, and the puddle is not expanding.
So let’s review the numbers.
3:45-4:00pm — 5 gallons emptied on 1 trip.
4:00-5:05pm — 5 gallons/min = 300 gallons emptied on 60 trips.
5:05-5:50pm — 5 gallons/45 sec = 10/1.5 min = 20/3min = 400 gallons emptied on 80 trips.
5:50-6:10pm — 5 gallons/90 sec = 10/3 min = about 70 gallons emptied on 14 trips.
All together that is 775 gallons emptied on 155 trips to the sink to dump.
My back hurts now.
We’ll have to go down later and finish cleaning up, but we got everything moved, and I’d say 775 more gallons would have made a bit more of a mess. So, altogether, was certainly worth it.
I sure hope it stops raining…