My Archnemesis

My sister will tell you that drizzle is her archnemesis. Something to do with hair that reacts to humidity. My archnemesis? Electric sump pumps.

When I wrote yesterday's post I was sitting in the comfort of my parents' home, talking up how grateful we were to get through the hurricane unscathed. Then we went home and discovered that a lot of water was sinking into the ground, flowing into and right up out of our sump pump, flooding our basement. Luckily it was only about two inches deep when we found it, and had only gotten to about three inches deep before the volunteer fire department came by to siphon it out - they were at the neighbor's house so we dragged them right over when they finished up. The problem? We're still without power and likely will be until Friday. So our sump pump continues to fill.

Mark and I spent Sunday night waking every hour to empty it out (our method - pitcher of water from the sump pump goes into a plastic tub, when half full the plastic tub goes to the utility tub, lather, rinse, repeat). Then we'd rush back to bed to try to get about 45 minutes shut-eye before doing it again. Mark likened it to having a newborn. My dad brought over his pool pump (which we're running using the A/C adapter in our car) and that at least helps get the water from the sump pump in a hurry, but it's not strong enough to make it to our utility tub (up half a flight of stairs), so we're still stuck lugging tubs of water up from the basement.

We're currently on the hunt for a generator, but they're basically impossible to come by in our area. And since I was back at work today, and Mark has to go back sometime this week, we spent last evening (or at least I hope we did, since I'm writing this in advance) emptying the basement of what's left down there (mainly rubbermaid tubs and shelving), so that we can just let it fill during the day and empty it out when we get home. Ahh the joys of home ownership.

While this whole thing stinks (quite literally) I'm so grateful that we got by as easily as we did. Some of our stuff got damaged and will have to be tossed, but nothing of real importance. And lugging tubs of water everywhere is not my idea of a good time, but I suppose it is good exercise. And Charlotte will spend at least one night away from us (sharing a bed with Aunt Mandy), but I'm sure she'll get a mani/pedi out of it.

All this to say, it'll be a little quiet around here.