I’m keeping a weather eye on the creek out back (yeh, yeh, pun intended), because, with the steady rain, it’s now closer to the house than at any time in memory–now “wetlands” about 125′ from our basement door. So, if twc goes offline in the next couple of days and your trackbacks/comments aren’t being approved, just bear with me, OK?
Let’s see… burlap bags filled with absorbant kitty liter around the base of the back (basement) door? Maybe…
😉
At least the cable and power lines aren’t being rained out. So far.
Update: Well, we were more fortunate than some of the folks downstream of us, and th waters pretty much passed us by. Although the flood warnings continue for our area (indeed, our town) and the low-water bridge a quarter mile away is still under water and the flood plains (where most of the new housing in town has been built in the last decade–*sheesh!*) is swamp land, the creek that’s about 200 feet to our west that had approached as closely as 60 feet from our basement door has abated. The river–about 1.5 miles to the south–is still cresting though, and the folks who “built their houses on sand” in the flood plains there are in for more fun with shovels, wet vacs, new carpeting, etc., in the next few weeks. It’s what flood insurance is for. Makes me not mind the annual premium so much. *heh*
We had a tropical storm hang over Houston for an extended period a while back and the water level was hugging at my back door. If a large truck went by it would make waves which put water over the threshold and I would use towels to soak it up so it wouldn’t ruin my wood floors. Around 2am the storm began to move off and the water levels fell enough where I felt safe going to bed. There were photographs of 18 wheelers floating along sections of I-10 where they landed on top of other vehicles the next day. I hope to never see that much rain again.
Water woes are a lil special here @twc central. For one thing, our home is the only one on our street (and only one of two in the entire neighborhood) with a basement. Add to that the fact that our house is situated on the lowest point along the street (and second lowest in the neighborhood as a whole) and we do have to take a few extra measures.
Drainage: I’ve installed flexible water barriers and “decorative” stone riprap at several points to aid in flow away from the house. Mucho plantings, etc., to encourage wicking away from house, etc. I want to do more. Our property is about 2′ inside a class 2 (I forget the exact term–second stage?) flood area, but that means we’re close to where a “100-year flood” would likely cause significant damage to our finished basement. Furniture is slightly elevated, planning on ripping out the carpeting and tiling the whole finished basement with ceramic tile (can add rugs in winter if we want), for easier and safer cleanup if needed (wear a respirator, pour a couple of gallons of bleach on floor and squeegee it all out the back door if it comes to that. ;-)).
Would like to do other things but
1. they’re relatively expensive (like a slip-form rock wall around the back yard–lowest point of our property) and
2. the Corps of Engineers would probably come in and make me tear it all out, anyway
Glad your potential flooding issue ended as well as ours.