Omnium-gatherum
Matt Hanson’s Brain Archive
July 25, 2006
A Mild Disaster
It was still early morning on Mother’s Day when I ventured downstairs. I don’t remember exactly why I was headed downstairs just that I didn’t get all the way to the bottom when I noticed a peculiar sheen to the floor. A small bit of panic swelled from somewhere inside me. Slowly, not sure I wanted to do this, I looked over to the right to survey the rest of the basement. The panic leapt into my throat when I saw things floating. The kids were up and I had a serious problem on my hands.
“Kiimmm!” It was not how I wanted to wake up my wife on Mother’s Day but I had to forgo my breakfast plans for her…and sleeping in wasn’t an option either. Sorry hon.
We were only one of many houses in Dover, in fact in all of NH, to experience basement flooding during these rains and we learned what a destructive force water can be. It only took several inches of water to destroy most everything - furniture, speakers, lots of books, the dryer - we were lucky it didn’t hit the furnance (just another inch). I’ve since ripped out the floor, the wall paneling, drywall (which got very moldy), and all the wood. Our basement is finished no more.
The upside of this is that we will get to refinish the basement in the way we’d like to do it. I’ve been playing with Home Designer to visualize the exact layout. It will still be another couple months before I can even get a contractor out to the house, but it will be a cool addition when all is done.
All in all we got off lucky considering how many people’s homes are completely devestated by floods every year.
Leave a Reply