Yes, another disaster. Although one that didn't cause damage.... other than scaring me to nearly to death.

I was sitting here, surfing and suddenly I heard a roaring sound. The cat's all got freaked out, and then the shaking started. I was almost shaken out of my chair. I actually saw the walls MOVE. If felt like a rough landing in a jet.

It took a moment for it to register what had happened. At first I thought it might have been a tornado, (it is the season for them)...  turned out to be an earthquake of 5.4.

I called Charlie. He was still driving to work. He said he didnt feel anything. But as it turns out, most that were driving DIDN"T feel anything.

I watched the news all morning, it hadn't seemed to have damaged anything. Then at 11am, two more aftershocks hit. At least I knew what it was this time... but it didn't scare me any less.

About a month ago, I woke up early one morning. I stumbled out of bed, and headed for the bathroom. Just as I crossed out of the living room, I stepped in something wet. I wondered if one of the cat's had an "accident". I headed back to the bedroom to get my glasses and when I looked, I found that there was a small puddle of water seemingly coming from the water softner. I was midly alarmed, not somthing I wanted to deal with at 5am. I continued on to the bath room, the floor was dry. UNTIL I got into the bathroom. Just as I stepped in front of the toilet, it was also WET. My mind immediately calculated that we have water coming in on two different walls of the basement. At that same moment, the sump pum alarm went off. I yanked open the pump room door and there is water "fountaining" up out of the sump pit.

Now, when we bought this house, it made us wonder why they had built a block wall about a foot high around the sump pump area. It suddenly became crystal clear. It was a "grace" wall. Designed to give you a bit of time until it actually flooded. Too bad they neglected to seal the wall. (cinder block is pourous)

The water was seeping through the wall and continuing to move into Jen's room. I went in there and check... yes, the carpet was wet, not only that, it was continuing on into OUR room. I ran in there and the water was creeping out from under out pedestal bed. I grabbed all the towels I could find in the misguided effort to STOP THE WATER IN IT'S TRACKS! (FAT CHANCE)

I grabbed a pair of short and a tee-shirt and headed up stairs. Charlie stayed downstairs to see what he could do. At that point we thought the pump had merely stopped pumping and was causing the problem. When he came up, he said that the pump was still on, but the water wasn't going any where.

I called an  emergency plumber out and he got there in a timely manner. Only to tell us that he couldn't help us... that we needed a "drain guy". He called his company and had us put on "first dispatch'. in the meantime I'm calling the Restoration company that dried us out after the hail damage of '05. They also got there immediately, only to tell us that they had nothing on their truck that would handle that amout of incoming water... yes, it was still rising.

The drain guy got there and thus started our day from hell. From 5am to 9am we ended up with a foot of water in our basement. It was coming THAT fast. Charlie was piling stuff up on the furniture, and dragging what he could up the stairs and into the garage.

The drain guy was there all day, and really didn't do anything positive to fix the problem. Charlie got a portable pump and set it at the bottom of the stairs and ran the hose up the stairs and out the garage and down the drive. He managed to pump all but two inches of water (the pump couldn't pick up any lower than that) Then he got out my carpet cleaner and sucked the remaining water up. ONE GALLON AT A TIME)

The drain guy had tried to snake our outside line to the storm sewer, and found it was clogged or collapsed with roots. Charlie suggested we take the pump and stick it in the hole that they made in the line when snaking. That effectively bypassed the clogged line.

The restoration company came and extracted the rest of the water, put all our stuff up on blockes and brought in fans and dehumidifiers to get the moisture out.

We ended up being out of the house for 10 days while it was drying out. We are currently back in the house, but sleeping in the guest room up stairs, on an air bed. lol. The down stairs is still a mess. We're in the process of tearing out all of the ruined carpet, and will be putting down new vynal flooring that will be flood resistant in the event (God forbid) that it ever happens again.