Rocket Boy got on the phone to our insurance agent this morning and found out that, like most people in Boulder County, we don't have flood insurance. Damn.
It made me REALLY glad that we'd worked so hard the night before to get the water and mud off our floors as quickly as we could. And of course we'll be able to deduct some of the repairs from our taxes, maybe.
It turns out that at least five houses on our street flooded last night, and none of them had flood insurance. We own two of the houses and our next-door neighbor owns the other three, which is a little odd but there you are. Our tenants in Clifford's old house had worse flooding than we did, and the carpet in two of the bedrooms was ruined. So we told them to pull it up and we'd either replace it or refinish the floors underneath. It's all deductible on our taxes anyway. I keep telling myself that.
Once we got all that bad news, we realized we couldn't afford to hire someone to pump out our basement. So Rocket Boy bought a sump pump at Home Depot and our friend Bill brought over one he owns and they started pumping. Here's Baby A watching the water level go down. It started where the pink chalk mark is on the left.
An hour or so later it was down to here:
and then finally down to here, after which Rocket Boy turned the pumps off for the night:
Here's a close-up of what it looks like inside (just a bit, what you can see through the door):
I'm kind of thinking we should just hire someone to haul everything in there off to the dump. Even if all our Christmas ornaments are in there. All my little Halloween Barbie dolls. Whatever it is that's down there has got to be ruined. I know it's just stuff and it doesn't really matter, but I'm pretty horrified by the whole thing anyway.
I took a moment to look at the patio -- I could never look at it last night because we had to keep the doors closed against the water.
Look at all the mud piled up next to the door.
And here's our croquet set:
It was more fun to watch the water come out of the hoses in front of the house.
The boys had way too much fun playing with the water, and I had to keep reminding them that it was DIRTY water, and not to get it in their mouths. We'll probably all develop some horrid disease.
We helped Dad set up a pump at Clifford's house too.
On the plus side, it only rained a little today, and tomorrow is supposed to be mainly dry too. Big chance of heavy rain on Sunday, but maybe the creeks will have receded a bit by then. And we had a lovely sunset tonight.
Things will get back to normal bit by bit. I just wish we hadn't had to have this particular experience. The moldy/mildewy smell from the basement permeates the whole house, and Rocket Boy and I are both so tired we can hardly see straight. I'm going to take a shower and head for bed. We've agreed to ignore the noises I keep hearing from the basement -- probably destabilized junk falling over. If it's something else, I guess I don't really care.
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