Water, Water Everywhere

So yesterday, the remnants of Hurricanes Gustav and Hanna passed through Providence. It began raining (hard) at about 2AM Saturday morning. We woke up around 6, and, after spending a few minutes marveling at the incredible amount of rain coming down, we noticed that some of our gutters still seemed to be clogged. In particular, we saw this from our screened-in porch:


Not a great photo, but yikes! You can see the water jetting out from a few joints in the downspout. We went outside in the downpour, detached part of it, and Rob scooped out a handful of leaves and other muck. Thad's nifty screen probably saved another RotoLooter visit. Problem solved! Or so we thought...

(Insert Jaws theme song here...):


Again, not the greatest photo, but do you see that hole in the basement floor? That's a hole in the foundation. You can pour water in it (from the oil burner, dehumidifier, or whatever), and it disappears into the ground. It's also where the water main and water meter for the house are located.

Now look at the photo again. Can you see that it's full of water? And beginning to spill over the top? Into the basement?! Agh! Water, water everywhere! Seems the soil around the house couldn't handle the immense amount of water (still coming and due to keep coming for another 24 hours, by the way), so it filled up.

I had weekend coverage at the hospital yesterday, so Rob drove me through the rain to work, ran to Home Depot, got a wet vac, and returned to man the homestead. The water level slowly went down throughout the day. We checked on it several times during the night last night. It filled up again about halfway but no more.

And now it's a beautiful sunny day today! Big sigh of relief.