Under the Weather

These were our attempts to show the amount of water in our backyard during the intense thunderstorm on June 4th after a week of rain. You can make out the cement patio on the bottom left, everything to right is water. The water was almost up to the floor of the car (which was a rental as ours is in the shop). And just to put this in perspective, we're uphill from most of our neighbors. But the water was actually flowing from the northeast corner of the lot through to the driveway at the southwest corner of the lot. The gravel driveway was washed out. Usually our basement gets a little trickle of water from the northwest corner to the floor drain.


We weren't so lucky this time. Water came in through the windows and
actually appeared to flow through the walls. Normally all of our
stuff in the basement is up off the floor, so it wouldn't have had
much of an impact, but since we're packing, there were packed boxes on
the floor and lots of our good packing boxes. So we quickly hauled
everything that we could upstairs. Only one or two empty boxes were
destroyed. There were a few stacks of boxes of my books that we
couldn't get upstairs, so the bottom box of each of those were
ruined. Eventually the sump pump and floor drain did their thing, so
there's no standing water left. But the carpeted area is saturated.
We're hoping the dehumidifier and fans will help until the landlord's wet basement cleanup specialist comes on Monday or Tuesday. Meanwhile, I'm going to run
all my quilting fabric and whatever bedding we stored downstairs
through the dryer right before packing so it doesn't mold hopefully. The gravel
driveway is washed out to the extent that the drain pipes are exposed.
Luckily our car was at the garage for a major tune up, so we don't
have to worry about getting it down the driveway. We'll just park on
the street for the next two weeks. Glad it's not our house. Just
wish it could have held off for another two weeks.
Apparently all of Bloomington was hit hard. Cars downtown were
floating in parking lots and bumping into one another. Pavement
washed away along the edges of roads. The governor has declared Monroe County a disaster area.

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