Nor'easter

Our living room right now.

Our dining room.

Two and a half years ago, we moved from an average-sized home in Austin, Texas to half of a 140 year old New Jersey duplex. Knowing that we would be pressed for space, before moving we purged ourselves of a ridiculously large amount of crap. Mountains upon mountains of crap.

When we got here and tried to unload the moving truck, we realized we had barely scratched the surface.

Luckily, New Jersey homes come with these enormous spaces underneath them. They call them basements. And our basement was just the right size to fit all of our extra crap.

Sadly, apparently our basement cannot accommodate both our excess baggage and thousands upon thousands of gallons of water simultaneously.

Our basement right now.

It took a mere three hours for us to go from picking up a few items of laundry from the floor so they wouldn't get wet, to watching cat turds float by as we scrambled to get all our stuff up to the relative safety of the first floor.

If you had asked me this morning what I'd be doing at 10 PM this evening, I doubt I would have said, "Making snap decisions as to which of my family's possessions I save, and which I let the water claim."

Comments

[Angela]

Yikes! So sorry about the flooding, let's hope locusts and frogs aren't next on the list.

[Shiri]

Wow, that sucks. Actually, it's the oppsite of suck. Err.. floats? Hang in there. And don't blame it on the Cherry Blossoms.

[Petunia]

Oh, The Dad, I'm so sorry that my home state is treating you so badly.

[Anne Prince]

Oh Daddy....same here - we are up to the foot level. Yuck! (Feel free to substitute the "F")

[magpie]

Damn. That doesn't look like any fun at all. We just have puddles in the basement - BUT, the trains are screwed up and my kid's daycare is closed - so, it's a hooky day.

[Wendy]

Our basement has flooded three times in as many years. Apparently our house was built on an underground stream - a fact which the previous owners failed to mention. After having the perimeter of our basement jachammered and shelling out $10,000, we have a brand new, bullet proof sump pump system. Rain no longer scares me.

I'm sorry about your flood and hope it doesn't take too long to clean up.

[Abby]

Omigosh, that just sucks. I'm so sorry! I pray things calm down, dry up, and get better for you all SOON.

[Liesel Elliott]

Oh yeah, I'm with you on this one. Except that in addition to the basement flooding, we also have an attached garage. At about hour six of baling out water I realized that the garage was equally submerged.

The garage does not hold a car, because it holds all of our crap from Brooklyn - scratch that - it now holds all our our priceless collections of waterlogged corrugated cardboard now destined for the dumpster.

But I'm counting my blessings because several of my neighbors' cars were submerged yesterday when the nearby stream overflowed its banks.

[anne nahm]

Oh, that is such a tremendous bummer.

[mother_of_i]

Woh, and I thought we had it bad. Can definitely identify with everything you're saying, Dad, including the floating cat turds. We do not have it as bad as you, so I'll try to stop pitying myself in light of your troubles.

Have scored a 3/4" inch pump this morning in Harrison for $100 which seems to be doing the trick (4 inches of water in about 3 hours). You'd need something bigger than that - e.g., a 2" submersible. Email me if you want leads.

Wendy, who did your french drains? We have to do that now and I need referrals.

[Amy]

Oh I am so sorry! That's not fun :( You could always leave the stuff on your main floor and call Clean Sweep fast!!!

[Jacques Costeau]

Did the police divers find any bodies in there?

[dervish]

Oh no!!! So sorry about your basement and your stuff. And.. um.. what *is* that thing under the blue disk in the basement photo? It looks like a cat scuba-diving. ?!!??

[Kerri]

Like Wendy, we dished out $10K for that basement system. It does work. Lots of flooding around here, but not in our house! And our house sets down from the road, an easy target for the water to run into. But it just keeps going down the back to the path to the stream -- er, I mean, trail that leads to the lake that used to be a little swamp. If it's not the trees coming down, it's flooding! Not much you can do, except what you already are. So don't lose it and threaten to make the kids go swimming in that murky water.

[mother_of_i]

Kerri/Wendy,

Who did your basements? I need to have that work done.

[rik]

oh man...that's terrible. so sorry to hear (see) that. we had some heavy rains a couple of weeks ago that started the adrenaline going when we found water streaming its way into our basement, but then discovered that it was because a downspout was dumping water basically straight to the foundation and it was easy to fix. nothing like this...hope you get everything sorted out quickly.

[Not Erin]

It sounds like basements are a huge liability. That must be why Texans don't have them. At least we got something right.

[Tammy from Twinstuff]

That really sucks! I hope it doesn't get any worse. I feel for you with all the clean up. We don't have many basements here in Arkansas. Under the ground around here is nothing but solid rock. We had to get a jackhammer in just to drill the footings for our deck.
Anyway, I hope that the rain stops soon and your computer is waterproof!:)

[TSM]

Well, if the cat turds are followed by the cat, problem solved (once the water dries up, that is). I wish WE could do that with our turd-producing cats. Ever hear of a LITTER BOX?? ARGH!

Oh, what's that? Sorry...yeah...kind of tired of the poop here.

[Not Erin]

Quick, sombody call a reality show to stage an intervention!
Seriously, though, while all that stuff is out, you might as well have a garage sale.

[Wendy]

Mother of I - Basement Systems. Their website is www.basementsystems.com. They did an excellent job. They basically ruined the bathroom though because they had to remove the shower and vanity in order to jackhammer. I didn't mind too much though. I'd been wanting to remodel that bathroom anyway. Only other complaint is that they got concrete all over the baseboards. I just had to scrap it off with a paint scraper and repaint the boards. No biggie. Good luck!

[Greatexpectations]

Looks like swimming season arrived early! Sorry about the mess. What is worse the water in the basement or the fast food joint slide 'incident?"

If I didn't live a couple states away, I'd gladly take those moose rockers off your hands for my twins!

Isn't life grande?

[creative-type dad]

Man, that's one crazy basement.

We don't have them out here in Calif. I think a good earthquake would make the house cave into a sinkhole.

[susies]

I'm guessing you're in a bigger town than I live in, but just in case, if you have a volunteer fire department they will come pump the water from your basement. Good luck drying out. Or, not, if that means you have to stop drinking. Good luck with the water is what I meant.

[Loren]

Here in Iowa we have basements because of those wonderful little things called "tornadoes." Luckily, the houses come with a sump-pump installed, which runs almost constantly in spring. It is THE BEST investment. As I was typing that, I realized you probably already figured that one out. Good luck!

I think eBay may be needing a visit in the near future...