Flood!!!

We live in Iowa, and as you may have read or heard in the news lately, just about the whole state, and much of the Midwest, is dealing with a little (or a lot of) extra water right now.

Our basement has been flooding, but actually not as a result of all this recent flooding that has been going on. We found out that it always has, and that the guy who sold us the house basically lied and said that he fixed the problem, when really he didn't. He did do some work on the house to take care of the problem which he told us about during the sale, but we now know that he didn't find out what the actual problem was before he "fixed" it, so of course it didn't work. And, our neighbor across the street told us that he did know that it wasn't in fact taken care of, because he had problems with it even after the "fix." Basically, when the house was built, the builder didn't attach the basement windows correctly to the house, and seal them, so if water gets to that seam of foundation and window, it just comes right in. Add to that the fact that the window wells were also not made in a water-tight fashion, and basically any time it rains enough to saturate the ground around the window wells, we get water into the house around the windows, down behind the finished walls, and finally soaking up through the carpet/sheetrock. So we have been having water since about the thaw in March on and off, although obviously with all this rain it has been a lot worse lately. We have ordered new window wells, and when installed correctly with the seams filled in, we hope that the problem will be taken care of. We currently have a very classy-looking (kidding of course) tarp tent over the window that leaks the worst, which has actually helped a lot, while we wait for our ordered items.

But, back to the flooding. During the last week our area has had a LOT of rain. Several inches, sometimes in a few hours. Day after day after day it seems like. So on Sunday we were at church, and a guy there said that during the flood of '93 one road managed to always stay open, even in the worst of it, and that road happens to be the road we take into town when we go. Then it rained a lot on Sunday and again on Monday. We live about 5 miles/8 minutes from Narasimha's office. He tried to come home after work on Monday, and our "sure thing" route was flooded over. Yikes. So basically, he had to go way over west and up north and around, and 80 miles and over 2 hours on mostly soggy gravel roads later, he was finally home. We live just a few miles north of M-town, and between our house and town is a river, and a lot of low-lying ground. And, only a few roads that go into town. So we got blocked off. Our road was still closed Tuesday morning, so he didn't even try to go into work. He didn't think he'd be able to go today, but they opened the road right before 8:00 AM, so he headed in. It rained a fair amount today around here, but the road managed to stay clear. Now we are projected to get more rain tonight and tomorrow so he has said he won't go in tomorrow morning, and we'll see where we are by tomorrow afternoon. The problem isn't always just getting in - you have to have some way to get back home too.

So, that's our flood experience so far. We wouldn't have water in the basement if things had been done correctly, so hopefully in a few weeks when our special-order window wells come in we can put this problem behind us once and for all. People have asked if we have a sump pump - we do and it works just fine - it's below our bedroom and I have been hearing it go off regularly. The water doesn't even get close to the top of the pit.

Thanks for those who have asked how we're holding up in our saturated corner. We're still here and still afloat and probably at this point doing better than many who have more water in their basements than we do :) And, Narasimha can't complain - he's gotten a little extra time off work ;)