Flood Part 4 - Thank You!

A Light at the End of the Tunnel - Thank You!

We are beginning to return to normal.  Still lots to do, but it does not feel as overwhelming! We had help from lots of people.

NYSEG came promptly to turn off the gas.  Then, NYSEG's Brooke Pierce came back several times to check the progress and to make sure we had electric and gas services as soon as possible.  She is really conscientious! Without her help, we would still be wet and shivering.

And there are lots of wonderful people in the city of Norwich, NY.

Norwich Fire Department Chief Jan Papelino and the folks at the Norwich Fire Department were super helpful.  They provided huge back-up pumps to get the water out, and Jan encouraged the city to pick up the flooded detritus.  That was so convenient and a huge saving and much appreciated!

We are also lucky to have excellent tradespeople in Norwich.

Collier Electric was quick and helpful.  Phil agreed that it would be a good idea to move the electric panel from the basement to the main floor of the house. If it floods here next time we're moving to Ararat.  And he kept the electricity going to keep us warm.

Marty from L W Morse & Son Plumbing arrived as soon as it was possible to get into the basement safely, and convinced our old water heater to work!  Hot water and the 4 electric heaters that he brought made the house almost livable while he and his assistant Keegan put in a modern furnace, replacing the antique one that flooded.

Luis has been helping us for over a year.  He does the heavy lifting.  He is always cheerful and is a super hard worker.  He got rid of a lot of the mud and muck.  We are very grateful for his help.

Kathy provided a delicious meal and visited for a bit of a break.  It was wonderful!  Karen kindly offered to do laundry - wow - that's an offer. . .

Flood Page 3 - More Cleaning

Now it's time to clean up the small stuff.  There were two sets of china stored in the basement, carefully packed in boxes with paper between the plates.  All wet!  And muddy.
This is a set for 12, bought in the 1960s.  There are dinner, lunch, salad, bread and butter plates, coffee cups, saucers, bouillon cups, and serving pieces.

D carefully washed the foam plate-separators, and the living room becomes the drying room.

These plate packagers needed scrubbing, too.

All set!

Years ago, we splurged on a set of Noritake for the younger daughter.

It was an amazingly complete set, and it was fun to dole out a few pieces for each event.

And there was still one more box.

That had to be scrubbed and has been repackaged for her to pick up.

Cookie cutters have all kinds of corners for mud to settle in.

A toothbrush helped.

 Now we're set for Christmas Cookies.

These very-50s stemware were covered in mud.

And if you were wondering. . .

The pizzelle iron does work!!!

Flood Page 2 - Clean Up - What a mess

Well, it's been a week.   This is a very unexpected and unusual flood.  We are in a flood plain, and we knew that.  After flooding a year or so ago where we got 18 inches in the basement, we replaced our weebly sump pumps with two powerful ones, and we thought we were set.

The police told the fire chief that at midnight all roads and bridges were clear.  At 1AM a car was stalled in flooding on the next street over (Prentice St).  That road is in a particularly low spot and often gets deep water, but not enough to flood!  And now it was flooded one hour after there was no flooding anywhere.  And our street was flooded by 2AM.  The other odd thing is that it was the creek that flooded.  The river never did flood here.  Our house is about equidistant to the creek and the river.

The city has been great!  The fire department set up pumps to pump out the basement.  They ran for 8 days.  D had to fill them with gas four times a day.  But it worked!  Today, two weeks later, there is no water coming into the basement and we have rolled up the hose on our two super-duper sump pumps.

We spent a week in a hotel.  We were warm and dry.  Poor Tommy had to stay home - but he does have a nice fur coat!

We had wonderful help from our electrician, Collier Electric.  He got here as soon as the basement was workable and moved the electric panel to one of the bedrooms.

Our plumber, Morse, has been great.  He was able to clean out the hot water heater, so that does not need replacing.  So with electricity and hot water, it was easy to move back.  Morse also lent us four electric space heaters, and we had two, so the house was toasty warm.  (The electric bill should be interesting.)  He is installing a new, more efficient, furnace - still in the basement, but high.

Above is the basement after the waters receded and a lot of stuff was taken out.

The water reached the hot air ducts that are now visible in this picture.

Notice the sturdy shelves broken by the weight of the wet things.

The flood water covered the first floor joists at the top of this picture. 

We had our back-up supplies in the basement:  Kleenex, paper towels, TP.  Boy, are they ever heavy when they are wet!  

Look at the silt left behind.  And it is a clay, so it glues on. 

 All the saws and chisels are rapidly rusting, but there is so much else to do.

 Water even got into the plastic storage boxes

 These will all have to be washed and ironed.  Sigh.

The tub needs to be filled at least four times to get sufficient rinsing.

Each piece of silver has to be hand washed and hand polished.

Fortunately, there were only two silver sets in the basement.

The cases are taken to the dump.

We sent a lot of stuff to the dump!

Today, D brought up some of my baking supplies.

 Even the closed containers leaked and were ruined.

I'll wash the containers and make my own sugar!

When we went to the Mennonite bulk store today I priced replacements.

These little tubs that were less than a dollar (all that time ago. . . )

are closer to $4 today.  And the silver and gold balls (dragées) are $8.

Last year I went nuts on food coloring, and the food coloring never made it to the basement, so this year I'll make my own colored sugar!

And, surprise, surprise, the silver dragées were spared.  No gold ones this year, though.

And I was tickled to find, in the back of the baking cupboard in the kitchen, all the flavoring oils!!!  

They had never made it to the basement!

I have 25 in the box (some duplicates) and those babies are $2-3 each to replace.

Now I don't have to!!!!

Some decisions are hard to make.  We have a pizzelle iron.  

Here it is in happier times:  Pizzelle Iron.  

Pizzelle Recipe.  

I use it a couple of times a year, so it's probably not worth replacing.  

Hooray - after cleaning, I think it may work.  

I have the plates seasoning in the oven.

Stay tuned for updates!

Flooding Surprise

Our adventure began in the middle of the night, when I saw flashing lights in the bedroom.  They had closed Prentice Street because of flooding, but that happens with many heavy rains.  I woke again around 2 and got up to investigate.  By then the rental car was flooded and the lights were on and the horn was beeping.  I was able to get it to stop beeping, but the lights stayed on, and that was that. . . 

Here, at 3AM, you can see the truck because the rental's lights won't go out.

Around 3, D moved his truck, which was not really happy, farther up the street.  The driveway with the car is a little higher, so we kept fingers crossed.  We did get water on the floorboards, but it seems ok, so far.

 The well-dressed problem solver - D had these waders in the closet, so he was ready to go.

More than a dozen houses on our block and two nearby blocks have flooded basements.

Well, NYSEG came out (at our request) to shut off the gas.  Since the furnace and hot water heater were under water, that seemed like a good idea.  Then we called the fire department to see if we could get pumped out.  Turns out they were already on our street - probably a dozen of us needed pumping.  While they were there, NYSEG came out and shut off the power to our house - probably a good idea, but it meant using my oxygen tanks instead of an electric concentrator.  And it meant that our two sump-pumps could not supplement the fire department pumps.   The house was getting cold (the winds are fierce!) and we decided to get a hotel room.  Alas, Tommy could not come with us, but we're at Fred's, so D or I can go back and forth to deal with Tommy.

This photo was taken mid-morning, after the water had dropped 18 inches.

Being optimists, we have an appointment with an electrician at 10AM to have him check the wiring.  However, since the river at Sherburne https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=bgm&gage=shbn6 has just barely dropped below "moderate flooding" stage, and is not projected to be below flood stage until Saturday evening, and that has to get to Norwich, I doubt that the pump will have it done by morning.

UPDATE:  Rather than leave a generator unattended, the fire department plans to turn it off tonight and return tomorrow with a bigger generator.

We have touched base with Morse Plumbing, and we will probably have them put a new furnace in the house or the attic.  But we do have electric space heaters, and the house is fairly tight, so if we get electricity we should be fine (with showers at the Y).

And, of course, today would be the day that the oxygen regulator on my tank would fail.  Fortunately, I had a back-up one left from our Baltimore adventure, but I really scared myself simple until we located it and replaced it.  And it was also fortunate that I had all my packing lists from the Baltimore trip, so I didn't have to think much!

There's no place like home!

Thank  you for your offers of help, support, and encouragement! I think we'll be ok.  I'm a little loopy with no sleep after 2am, but other than that, we're hanging in there.   Time for a nap!