( A picture taken yesterday a few blocks from my place.. )
The basement apartment I live in decided to take a page from the New Orleans flood yesterday.. A huge freak rain storm hit the city and the drainage system was overwhelmed.. This led to roughly a foot or so of water to cover the entire street and leak up onto the yard.. Now of course the yard around the house is improperly graded and tends to slope towards the basement door, now generally outside doors are basically sealed from moisture and the elements.. This one is not. The basement porch stairwell entrance is basically a shitty DIY attempt to add a basement entrance to a house that was turned into 3 apartments.. You can see sunlight from under the door and in small holes surrounding the door frame.. Needless to say I could have built a better entrance drunk..
Was sitting down with @aggroed on one of his PAL shows sipping a glass of wine and looking over some code when the winter wife proclaimed a friend of ours was driving into town and hit a massive storm system. Of course I replied "oh, not a big deal" then within about 5 minutes of saying that my feet felt damp and a puddle had formed on the carpet beneath me. I rushed to the porch leading up the stairs to the apartment entrance only to see a fucking waterfall pouring down the stairs.. It was at this point in time I realized that shit was completely fucked and their was nothing I could do about it. Went back inside, closed the door and told the winter wife to move any valuables she didn't want destroyed to higher ground. By this time a solid inch or so of water was covering the entire apartment floor and I'd unplugged all electronics in the house.. It was now a waiting game.
Within 5 minutes of the initial floor puddle and scramble to save things the water had begun pouring in the bottom door of the porch at a rate of probably a litre a second and while we scrambled to get things off the ground the water level continued to rise. Well over a foot of water was pooled at the bottom of the porch stairs entrance at this time and the weather stripping around the bottom door had exposed how incredibly poorly installed it had been. Realizing that the baseboard heaters were about to get submerged I shut the breakers off to the apartment, finished moving what I could to higher ground and then proceeded to go upstairs to have a smoke and talk with the upstairs neighbour.. At this point we'd moved what we can and the rest was up to the piddly drainage holes in the utility room adjacent to the apartment, it was in the hands of mother nature now.
Took a bottle of wine with me upstairs and shared it with the upstairs neighbour while we smoked and talked about the insane weather and flooding happening. Was almost done my cigarette when I heard my name being screamed in a TERRIFYING blood curdling tone. Threw my cigarette in the ashtray and ran downstairs thinking something was on fire or someone was being murdered, only to find my winter wife crying and pointing to the floor with about 5 inches of water covering it and my workstation computer submerged in it motherboard side down. My heart basically stopped for a moment as I picked the PC case off the flooded living room carpet and a stream of water poured out from it..
What had happened is the container that it was put up on started trying to float away and due to the center of gravity being bias and top heavy the container had flipped over while trying to float away, sending the PC splashing into the pool that was the living room at that time. Thankfully I'd unplugged everything prior to the PC taking a dive into the swamp like water.. But regardless of that the motherboard, PSU, NVME drives and some of the GPU were submerged in this filthy flood water for atleast half a minute.
I couldn't be upset at anyone but myself for being naive about the container being able to hold the PC. Certainly hadn't considered it trying to up and float away with a 40lb subwoofer and 10lb PC on top of it. The self powered KRK 10 inch subwoofer sitting on the same container as well so it also went into the drink. After shaking as much water as I could out of the PC case, PSU and from behind the motherboard I took it to the upstairs neighbours and pointed a fan at it, placing a towel under it to capture the remnants of the liquid that were still present. It's still sitting up there with a fan blowing on it. Will likely try to take all the components apart here later today and hit them all with a blow dryer for a bit to ensure they are completely dried out and then get some compressed air to blow the nasty sediment off of the components. The PSU will have to be changed as the paper used within it is likely fucked and once you get those wet you're almost certain to have failure or power output faults.
The apartment is basically fucked, with water damage up about 5 inches of the wall, the kitchen cupboards getting drenched and anything that came in contact with the water covered in grimy fine silt. While the landlord came and hooked up a sump pump and did his best to vacuum up the water this place is a fucking write off. Of course not having any renters insurance in my name is another issue and the furniture will all have to be thrown out. The flood water basically looked like liquid shit and even walking in it and drying your feet off after lead to sever skin irritation. To top it all off the flooding in the basement killed the hot water tank too, so haven't been able to have a shower to clean off 2 days of sweating due to humid conditions and desperately trying to clean a good quarter inch of silt brought in by the flood waters off of everything.
The landlord seems to be in denial about the whole basement needing to be ripped out and redone.. The place already had a bit of black mould in the corner behind the stove but now after this flooding incident I expect a massive mould bloom to occur within the next week or so.. Between the heat and humidity it's nearly perfect condition for fungus to spread to all of the water damaged areas and begin to decompose it. My prior house had a bit of a flood incident resulting in a mould bloom that got me sick and I sure as fucking shit will not let that happen again.. Looking for a new place and packing everything that didn't get destroyed currently now. FML
Will try and get some pictures added to this post once the winter wife wakes up, I think she took some with her phone. Currently using her laptop to post this but maybe, just maybe later today will be able to get my workstation PC to run again after it decided to become a mermaid.
Records showing that 155mm of rain fell in town.. A record for this city beating out the prior record over 60 years ago.. Fucking exhausted with all this shit getting fucked up in 2020.
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Oh my I am amazed of how well you coped with all of this ordeal. I would totally move out, especially if the landlord is so much in denial. Sitting in a place which will be blooming with mold is a big no no. Sorry to hear about all of your losses.
Wish you good luck with moving! At least you are all ok. You can have new furniture and a new place, you can't have new people in case something goes wrong.
Thank you for sharing this!
Yep.. Could have been worse.. We'll see how bad things are later today when I attempt to salvage the PC.
Mould fucking sucks.. Got sick with it a few years back, not doing that shit again.
Oh it is very bad for the lungs, not a good idea to sit in moldy places for sure
Yep.. This place already has some black mold in certain spots.. This moisture and heat is going to cause a bloom I reckon. FML
Ahh terrible terrible. I hate mold
Man @klye ...... the last thing you needed was for you and the winter wife to be knee deep in sludge water and then for your HIVE station to think it was Aquaman.
Since becoming a Steemian in 2016 this is about the nineteenth living situation quagmire you have been in.
I feel for you bro. Moving all the stuff is a nightmare.
Absolute shitshow.. The good news is half the shit in the house is destroyed so don't have to move it.. The bad news is half the shit in the house got destroyed. lol
Yeah.. My life is a fucking roller coaster.. Generally when things start going well shit goes bad. Almost used to it now.
I hear you man. There aren't a lot of highlights from 2020. That is for sure.
What a terrible story.
I hope you salvage your computer snd other stuff.
Attempting to salvage it now.. Wish me luck.