Saturday, February 5, 2011

another flood...of bigger proportions

For the second time in one month our home has turned into an indoor pool. Last time it was contained to the tiled hallway...this time we weren't so lucky.
Let me begin with the previous day. It has been abnormally cold in EP, apparently the coldest temps in the city's history (so glad we could be a part of it..). So on Thurs when we woke up with the water frozen to our shower, it was disappointing. When I later noticed flooding in the back yard I was a little panicked, but we just went without water for a day, and fared pretty well. When the contractor and his crew fixed the pipe so we could once again have water to our house and broke the news there was leaking on the inside of the wall...I was getting frustrated but glad it was contained. Ok...here it gets good.
While the contractor was still her fixing the pipes, we decided to go grab a bite and perhaps play at the play area. But noticing it was lunch time we told the workers we would bring back some lunch for them. Fast forward to an hour later, we arrive home to see the workers had left already (a little happy, I could easily eat three more hamburgers).
Let me pause to mention some key characters in this story...my inlaws. Oh thank goodness for my inlaws.
Ok. When we walk inside our house we are greeted with a small river, which when followed eventually turns into a lake. Apparently another pipe had burst, which went unnoticed because we had no water the past day. After the workers fixed our outside pipes, they turned the water back on before they left. Only this busted pipe was leaking on the inside of our house, right by Rys room. The water had completely flooded Ry's room (where her carpet was floating), made its way down the hall (partially into Soph's room), through the hall between the kitchen and living room, and snaked around to the garage.
Where I was rooted to the floor, ready to burst into tears, my inlaws sprang into action. I know it probably isn't the best vacation for them...but I'm SO happy they were here. Four sets of hands made clean up way better.
This was rough of my emotions, but there were a few things to be grateful for. I'm glad we returned early to bring lunch back...another hour of this leaking would have been disastrous! Glad my inlaws were here otherwise Kev would have been at work and I would have been home alone, probably still staring at the water. Glad our house is mostly tiled, even though I curse it every week when I have to clean it.
To the left of the door and all the way down that hall is where the leak was coming from.
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I snapped this pic within the first couple mins. of cleanup, and look how much water is already in the courtyard. Ushering the water out the front of the door went on for another 45 mins. Then another couple hours of sucking the water up with the shop vac in Ry's room. And we were only gone for less than a hour.

even in texas

Even Texas is feeling the effects of the big storm system. The difference between EP (el paso) and the rest of the country is the city of EP is apparently not equipped to fall below 20 degrees. So the all time single digit record lows put the city in a frenzy. So what happens in EP when the temps dip into freezing and a few flurries dust the street....
City generators break down causing rolling black outs
Businesses close their doors (including the gym and chick-fil-a)
Schools are canceled
Streets and interstates are closed
Just about everyone's pipes burst guaranteeing employment for every plumber in EP (post to come)

Ry misses the snow, so when she ran into our room around 4:30am exclaiming "there's snow out my window!" I think she was pretty thrilled. We broke out the snow clothes, and I watched the excitement from inside my toasty house.











Remember this Denver post? Funny how those snow days in Denver cause less damage than this "snow day" in EP....
On a side not...yes Ry is still wearing the same snow clothes from 2009.