Yesterday we were treated to a line of storms, thundering across Illinois. Since I like storms, it was cool to hear the thunder and see the lightning. However, when our water alarm downstairs (the Leak Frog) went off, and when Michael went to check on it, the fun was over. Water was standing about 6-8 inches deep at the door of the basement. The whole first room of the basement was flooded, and we didn’t know about the second room.
Interestingly, the waters subsided fairly quickly, since we have two drains down there. After the water was gone and we tried to figure out what happened, we figured that the city drains must have been overwhelmed and backed up into our house. The second room of the basement was not very wet at all. Just the room with the two drains was the worst.
Then it was time to clean up. All of the laundry waiting to be washed was now urgently in need of washing, thanks to the water. And various boxes were ruined. Some of Michael’s boxes of tools were soaked, and had to have the water poured off. A few things were ruined, but amazingly, the water didn’t do as much damage as we first thought.
Once the most urgent things were rescued, we set up the Leak Frog again to warn us if we had another flood, and we went to bed. Thankfully, no more floods came.
Today I worked hard getting all of the laundry washed and brought upstairs. Lots of odd things got washed, too, such as miscellaneous snow boots, odd gloves, a small soft-side suitcase, some mesh laundry bags, and anything else that had gotten caught in the water. As I emptied the laundry bins, Luke was kind enough to hose them off in the back yard. By the time Michael got home, my job was done, and he decided to work on hosing down the muddy basement floor. That resulted in more organizing and a few more items to be dealt with, but all in all, the basement looks much better now than it did before the flood.
More storms are coming tonight, but we’re in a better situation to handle another flood should it happen.