When I went to bed last night, I thought that a few rain-catching bowls on the living room floor would be the worst symptom of the storm. I was wrong.
My husband woke me up from a deep sleep around 2:30 a.m. Through the haze, I heard him saying something about an alarm and electricity and buzzing. It took me a while to realize that he was insisting that I get up.
When I finally stumbled out of bed and turned off my bedside fan, I could hear a loud, insistent buzzing sound from the basement that reminded me of the sound the dryer makes to indicate that its cycle is over, except that it didn't just buzz and stop.
I looked down the basement stairs and saw a good three inches of muddy water covering the floor. The cat box had floated to the base of the stairs and was gently bobbing there. The buzzing noise was definitely coming from the other side of the wall, but I could envision all of the electrical appliances in the laundry room and was thus unwilling to touch the water in the course of trying to find the source of the noise.
I looked online (of course) to see if I could Google up any clues. It was possible that the sound was a water sensor that I didn't know I had, but I really doubted it. My husband and I had absolutely no idea what to do. We'd had a bit of water in the basement before, but never this much. We guessed that the combination of the heavy storm and the lack of gutters on the house due to the roof work had overwhelmed our already porous stone foundation.
Finally, my husband called the contractor, who had already told him that he was available 24/7 if we had more problems with the rain. Still exhausted and completely unhelpful, I crawled back into bed and let the men deal with things.
This morning the alarm was silent. My husband woke up long enough to tell me that his buddy had stood on the stairs, reached over and opened the door between the sides of the basement, which caused the sound to cease. We still don't know what it was.
The basement floor is now damp and dirty, but the standing water has subsided. I need to get a plumber out a.s.a.p. to clear our slow drainpipe.
Today's weather forecast: a 50% chance of snow. Sigh.
For some reason, now I have this mental image of your cat slowly floating by in its litterbox.
Posted by: Karl | March 01, 2007 at 10:17 AM
Jane, sorry to hear about all this upheaval. Your life must feel turned upside down.
Thinking of you. KP
Posted by: Keith | March 02, 2007 at 01:46 AM