Saturday, April 02, 2005

More damned water

It's raining, again.

The basement of my late grandmother's house is flooded, again.

I was over there from 3:00 to 8:00 running pumps with little effect, all the while having someone check the condition of my basement periodically.

I guess they weren't checking often enough. The entire basement flooded suddenly, much worse than we had the other night. I hurried home and began strategic pumping. Now I'm just doing maintenance pumping. Good thing I bought a second pump.

This used to be an extremely rare event. We had a flood in 1972 as part of Tropical Storm Agnes, and another in 1975 as part of Tropical Storm Eloise. Then again sometime in the early 1980's, possibly again in the late 80's, then in 1996. That was when I bought the first pump, the one which burned out back in January.

I bought a second pump in 2002 when I was sure that a late Winter storm would quickly melt and result in a flood. It didn't. But we did have a flood in June of 2003, the day after Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released. Then again in September 2004, after Hurricane Ivan. Then in January. Then Monday night. Then today.

I wonder if this is what climate change feels like?

1 comment:

anne said...

I feel your pain. And so...a little haiku for you.

sump pump gurgles now
spewing my cares into the
Nanticoke sewer

I hope it helps.