Yogi Said It Best

It shpritzed in White Plains this Thursday morning, a prelude to this evening’s downpours expected to produce flooding in many areas. For me it will be a form of, as Yogi would say, déjà vu all over again.

Let me set the stage for you: Thursday, March 1, 2007. A full day’s rain washed away several inches of snow from our lawn. Normally, water that seeped under our house would be channeled by French drains into a basement sump. It was then pumped outside to buried pipes leading to the street. Such a system had kept the basement dry for nearly a decade. The intermittent discharge of the sump pump motor was a comforting sound throughout any storm.

Friday, March 2. 7:30 am. Gilda and I finished packing for a six-day trip to Orlando for my magazine’s annual SPECS conference that attracted some 1,200 attendees. As we waited for the limousine driver to appear, Gilda remarked she had not heard the sump pump motor in a little while. When I opened the basement door I was astounded to see four inches of water lapping against the stairs.

It turned out water in the outside pipes had frozen. Instead of water being pumped out of the basement, it was surging back in. Within a few minutes’ time of my discovery, water had risen to a foot deep. Our basement is essentially a utility and storage room. We weren’t going to lose any furniture, but in jeopardy were the oil burner, hot water tank, and lots of stuff stored down below. More critical, the water was about to overwhelm an electrical socket.

I called the fire department. Thankfully, when the water was more than two feet deep, two firemen with a portable pump came to our rescue. I wound up catching a later flight to Orlando. Gilda flew down the next day after making sure no more rain was forecast.

So why is it déjà vu all over again for me? Well, it’s a Thursday, it’s raining hard, the ground is still somewhat frozen and recovering from the snowcap that just this last week blanketed our lawn. Plus, this is the day before I would be traveling to SPECS (outside Dallas this year) if I were still publisher. I’m not going anywhere Friday, so hopefully our basement will remain dry.

It didn’t remain dry for long in March 2007. Three weeks after returning from SPECS, Gilda and I prepared to travel to Barcelona for the first World Retail Congress. The day before that trip a fresh rainstorm re-flooded the basement. This time I was prepared. With three extra sump pumps and hoses I was able to stay ahead of the tide. However, we did lose the hot water tank and lots of low-lying stuff around the basement.

We upgraded our protection system a couple of years ago: A new sump pump with emergency battery backup and new pipes buried deeper underground, pitched to prevent freezing. The pipes are connected to a storm sewer line the city extended down our cul de sac upon our request (ah, the joy of our tax dollars at work).

Of course, the upgrade did not go off without a hitch. The new piping went near our underground oil tank. The contractors discovered it was leaking, which meant EPA notification. Nothing like finding out your property is a hazardous environmental site.

It’s all cleaned up now, we’ve got a new above ground oil tank, and, hopefully, tomorrow I’ll wake up to another dry basement.