rain, rain everywhere (but outside would be better than inside)

[cellio]

Not long ago, there was a very heavy, sustained rain outside. (Now there's just regular rain.)

There is a lake where the patio is supposed to be. It's draining, very slowly.

There is water oozing into the basement from many directions. There is a sustained gurgle as that water makes its way, slowly, to points of egress, leaving flowing tendrils all about. We've seen water in the basement before; we always assumed it was pipes backing up, not a water invasion. The various folks we've called to bring in snakes and stuff when that happens have never done anything to dissuade us of this idea.

Lovely. Just lovely.

On the positive side, this is probably the sort of thing that's covered by homeowners' insurance. (I am often amazed at what's covered by homeowners' insurance.)

On the negative side, it's going to be a pain to get this diagnosed and fixed, I don't know if they can fix patio drainage (if that's a source of problems) without ripping up huge amounts of our yard, and the guest room is in the basement (see previous entry about imminent guests). Obviously we'll come up with some other solution for the guests, but still...

And Shabbat starts in less than half an hour, so certainly we're not going to call anyone in for a quick fix tonight.

Comments

[murmur311.livejournal.com]

actually, you might want to check your insurance policy- there's been a lot of flooding in my area in the past few weeks b/c of the massive amounts of rain and the news shows have been telling people to check their policies. they said that most policies will cover flood damage from leaking and burst pipes or the roof leaking, but not from flooding. just an fyi. i hope you don't get too much damage- i learned to never leave anything in the basement on the floor that i wanted to save (unless it's in a plastic bin) after my mom's basement flooded 3 days after i moved home from college last summer and i lost a lot of books and personal letters and papers (amongst other things).

anyway, good luck with the water. shabbat shalom!

[cellio]

I don't think we lost too much actual stuff -- maybe some boxes but not their contents, and maybe a couch (we'll see how it dries). The lone finished room downstairs has carpet that will probably need to be ripped up and replaced, and then there's the cost of whatever alteration will make this less likely in the future. (I don't think a single incident did structural damage, but ignoring it could lead to damage over time.) I'll call the insurance agent and ask about that on Monday; most of what needs to be done we'll do either way, but it'd be nice if some help were available.

According to an article in this morning's paper, this happened to a lot of people in this part of town. A couple streets over, a bunch of people had 3 feet of water in their basements -- much worse than we got.

I was helping with a Pitt BBQ in Oakland tonight

[(Anonymous)]

Luckily, we were on the patio of William Pitt Union and were able to
move most of it indoors.

It rained torentially most of the evening, with only short breaks. It rained so much, that I called JIm and asked him to meet me in downtown as I'd gotten soaking wet running between the Union and my office
(about 1.5 blocks).

However...

When I got to downtown a little after 8, it was fairly dry - as if they'd had one brief burst of rain earlier, and then it went away. Later in the evening, the downtown area got the same kind of torential rain Oakland had earlier (we saw this by watching the baseball game on TV).

Sorry to hear about your wet basement!

Laurie Mann

Re: I was helping with a Pitt BBQ in Oakland tonight

[cellio]

When I left work on the South Side at 5:30, it was raining heavily enough that I hussled but lightly enough that I didn't really mind. That was the worst I saw until 15 seconds before I pulled into my garage in Squirrel Hill, when the heavens opened. (Fortunately, it's only about 10 feet from the garage to the porch.) Then it got worse. At 7:30, when I would have left to walk to services had we not had guests coming, it was raining heavily enough that I might have not gone anyway, or gone to the shul a block away.

This morning the patio was still a (smaller) lake but the basement had mostly dried (some remaining puddles, no ongoing flow), so it looks like the patio and the basement situations have common ancestry but are not causally linked.