Did I never write about the 100-year-flood of 2008? I don’t think I did! I wrote about the first 100-year-flood in 2007…. and the second 100-year-flood in 2007… but I don’t see where I ever noted the 100-year-flood in 2008! It occurred September 13, and that was just a REALLY rough time in general.
I guess I never mentioned it because it was rather unremarkable. Most everything I stored in the basement had already been destroyed by the two floods in 2007. My freezers (yes, plural, I have four of them, all full of raw pet food components) all survived the flood of 2008, as did my furnace and water heater and clothesdryer and cruddy washing machine. The only drama was rescuing the cat I was fostering at the time, Dreamsicle, and putting him up in the guest bedroom for the remainder of his stay. Then, of course, there was the clean up, which is always a very fun job.
I’ve come to the conclusion that water is NOT coming from outside into the basement. I went downstairs around 9:00 a.m. and it was dry. I went down again before noon and it was a disaster – the water had already come up, been around a foot deep, and receded again. The new enclosure kept the walkout basement steps dry – but I still flooded, so the enclosure was apparently a poor investment. Instead, I believe water is gushing up from the drain in the basement floor once the city storm drains hit capacity. Lovely. A friend that’s not local asked me why there are several city ordinances that prohibit homeowners taking measures that would protect them from flooding. I informed her the city of Chicago would really appreciate it if we could just take water from the streets and pump it into our basements as it’d take a lot of the load off the city sewers.
At some point, we really need to stop calling them 100-year-floods, in my opinion. The first time, sure… but now, do we really still think it will only occur once every hundred years? I doubt it.
Backyard just prior to the flood
