Our Weathermen Suck

Well, you can scratch what I said in that last post. Hurricane Ivan hit us in a big way. Thanks to our local media and the incompetence of the National Weather Service (what they're calling a "simulation glitch"), the river actually crested Sunday afternoon at forty-five feet, much higher than expected. It was at about 41 feet when the house on Front Street had six inches, and the new house on Scammel started getting water through the basement drain. That was Saturday (9/18/04).

Saturday we watched the water creep up Scammel Street, and our neighbor was already pumping water from his basement. However, our drain plug seemed to be holding and I really thought we'd be fine. I was stressed to the max, checking the basement a couple times an hour, and staying glued to the tv and radio. Nobody's reports seemed to mesh with each other, and the lack of "official" announcements on the internet were frustrating to say the least.

I ended up just taking a chance on it and went to bed at 11:30 crossing my fingers. At 3:00am, I went downstairs to find water gushing down the basement steps! At that point, it was much too late to save anything, so all I could do was wade through 6 inches of freezing cold water to turn the pilot off on the hot water heater. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep after that. There's something really disconcerting about hearing stuff falling over and bumping into each other as it floats around.

Long story short (too late), the river crested at 45 feet and we had about 4-5 feet of water on Scammel, about 5-6 feet on Front. Both furnaces and hot water heaters shot. When I opened the door to see that water, it was like I'd been hit with a cannonball. So right now, we're gearing up to start the cleanup process. We have no hot water and only partial electric, as I had to shut some of it down because it shared the furnace circuit.

Now I'm really glad I didn't dispute our new house being in the flood plain. Below are some of the pics:

Scammel Street: Basement steps
Scammel Street: Back and side yards
Scammel Street: Front of house
Scammel Street: Alley beside house
Front Street: Water in basement (this was after the water had gone down 2 feet. Note the distinct water line.)