All of the homes in my neighborhood use a land drain to control
ground water. When the cottonwood trees two houses down get their
roots in the drain, water backs up and floods my basement. This has
happen twice before and required pulling up carpet and replacing
pad. Monday night the drain backed up again, this time putting five
inches of water in my basement!
The bright side: I will be getting rid of a whole lot of wet, soggy
junk that should have been thrown away anyway, and I will always
have a warm glow when I think of my neighbors pitching in to help.
I called a few of my flyfishing buddies and asked them to put on
their waders and give me a hand, the word of my disaster spread
though my church and we had thirty volunteers helping me haul out the
entire contents of my basement. Those of us with the waders were
sloshing through the basement handing stuff to a line of people who
passed it bucket brigade style up my stairs and into my garage.
Insurance won't cover it because it was ground water, and the city
can't be sued, but to my cities credit they have established what
they call a "humanitarian fund" which allows them to help people out
without admitting liability. They will cover all of the cost of
clean up and drying (several thousand dollars) and will help with
replacement of the carpet. I'm sure it will end up costing me a
couple of thousand but it could have been much worse!
After three slaps even an idiot will begin to start thinking, so I'm
going to install a backflow valve on the lateral line to the drain
and a sump pump to pump out ground water when the system fails.
Hopefully this will fix the problem.
Since this is a non-flyfishing post, please reply off list. I would
be interested in getting any advice from some of you who might have
experience dealing with the aftermath of a flood or ground water
control.
Thanks,
Tom Davenport
