The Weight of Water

In the play Julius Caesar, there is a minor character known as the soothsayer who walks through a scene or two before the (Spoiler alert) brutal stabbing of the Emperor, shouting "Beware the Ides of March."

I wish somebody had warned me that Mother nature would be stabbing me in the back, on the 15th. I might have been better prepared for the deluge. Then, again, like Caesar, I might have regarded the matter as fated by the gods. I'm picturing the musical version with Caesar singing "Que sera sera"in the first act.

After 23 years in this house without a significant water event, the torrential rains of March 12th, 13th and 14th added to an already saturated terra firma (or should we say terra squishy) and a higher than normal water table. By the morning of the 15th we had at least 6 inches of water in the basement. Everything below that height was drenched. Rugs, luggage, pictures, records (both paper and vinyl), books, cardboard boxes full of treasures. The interesting thing about cardboard is that it loses it's rigidity when it gets wet, so if you had stuff piled on top of a cardboard box, that stuff was likely to end-up in the water. Another thing I would not have predicted: if you pile stuff on top of a plastic bin, and the bin becomes buoyant, it will become top heavy and dump the stuff into the water. The same principle applies to a paper shredder.

The only amusing sight that morning was watching the cat try to use a floating litter box. Ok, not really that funny. The litter stayed dry but the cat got really wet. I hope he was not too traumatized.

Fearing the worst, we shut everything down that had a motor. This included the gas heating system and the downstairs refrigerator. The water extinguished the pilot light in the water heater (on Monday) and we have had no hot water since then. My wife went to our daughter's for her shower today. I believe an icy shower builds character. Plus, I notice that it takes much less time for a cold shower.

Did you know that unless you have specific flood insurance, your normal homeowners policy does not cover damage from rising waters?

As far as I can tell, we are the only house with a flooded basement in our neighborhood. Our nice flat lot seems to be a perfect storm drain. My wife blames it on all the building activity upstream - oops I mean: up the hill from us. Possibly, but then again we haven't had 8-10 inches of rain fall in such a short time for the past 20 odd years. So, maybe the perfect storm will never happen again. At least not in our lifetimes.

Despite these (manageable) hardships, we felt somewhat fortunate, compared to the devastating losses you see on the nightly TV news from all manner of catastrophe. Thousands of people got hit much worse in this storm. People with finished basements, people whose toilets have backed up and filled the house with sewage (our flood is from high ground water, not runoff or backups). Down hill from us there are people who live near the Charles River bank, only a few feet above the current river level - which is at flood stage. Their basements must be swimming pools.
We have been luck that the days have been springlike, so the no-heat situation is tolerable. Forecast for today is a balmy 70 degrees. We were fortunate that water never got high enough to short out the electrical system. So we have lights and power to run pumps.

Not being soothsayers, the future is not ours to see, but we remain resolute in our fight against the tides of fate. The stuff that was drenched will be tossed and soon forgotten. The beer refrigerator will dry out and be returned to service. I will bathe again in warm water. We shall overcome.