Oh Sh*t

I’m going to tell you all this story because it deserves to be told. Those of you who read my regular posts know that I spent most the day driving on Sunday of this week and the second half of the day bowling. On Monday my wife called me at work and said come home right away our basement is flooded and I smell burning. I of course told her to take a deep breath and leave the house and I will be home as soon as possible. Now, I do not want to say that I did not believe my beautiful spouse but she once called me home for a “giant” snake in our basement which turned out to be about 6″ long. However when I got home I quickly realized she was not exaggerating. My Aunt and Uncle, son and Wife were all standing in the driveway with wet shoes. I went around to the back  door to find my entire basement was covered in at least 6″ of water. Well, shit just got real. My mind starts racing what am I going to do. My uncle suggested I go back to work and get some trash pumps to start pumping water out. This did not seem like a bad idea plus it allowed me the ability to process my thoughts. While driving back to work I called my Insurance broker, he looked up my policy to confirm that I had the proper coverage if I needed it. I did but it was a 2500 deductible with a 10000 dollar Maximum pay out. Well just going off what I saw I don’t think that’s gonna cover it. The next person I called was Servpro they are a remediation company and the project manager there told me he could do nothing until the pipe was free of what ever debris that was down there. Call a plumber he says. He also told me do not run a trash pump cause either its an electric pump and I should not have electric in the water or its gas powered and I would just fume up the whole house. I called Rotorooter and aborted the trash pump mission. Rotorooter said they would have somebody come out in a couple hours. It dawned on me after the call that the pipe could not be clogged on my side if it was flowing like that. I decided to call the sewer company, maybe they would know if there was something going on in our neighborhood. The lady at MSD listened to my concerns and assured me that a technician would be out that evening to check the lines. When I arrived back home it had gotten worse. My uncle had remembered an old trick to try to raise the pipe level by putting a section of 4″ PVC into the drain and the water just traveled up the pipe and was now shooting out of the stand pipe. It was now very clear that I had a very big problem on my hands. I waited patiently for either Rotorooter or MSD to show up. About 9:30 MSD arrived and I’m going to have to tell you I was very surprised at how quick their response was. The crew chief got out of the truck and said he was going to check what he needed to check and would then come back up to the door. After about 15 minutes he came walking out of the woods. He said ” I know your worried sir, but MSD is going to take care of you real good on this one.” I asked him what the problem was and he told me the Main had a tree root growing in it. He was going to remove it and asked me to let him know when the water receded. I went downstairs and within ten minutes the water was gone and that’s when it hit me MSD doesn’t have any mains. Oh wait. Yes they do. Then I realized what I was actually seeing on the floor. Yep you guessed it sewage everywhere. That is all for tonight but I will document this entire situation from start to finish. See you tomorrow.