Here We Go ... AGAIN

Part II

Way back in May of 2004, a major sewer failure occured, filling almost every basement around my home (mine included!) with icky sewage water. An emergency fix was implemented, and things were basically a major zoo, with the city being ill-prepared to solve the problem and then with a high-hoe falling into the street shortly afterward. Somewhere in the middle there was a LOT of water, a lot of eating out and a lot of noise from many trash pumps trying to pull the water out of the damaged sewer. Somehow it ended up that the city found a construction firm to perform a basic fix, but it was well known that this was just a stopgap measure to let the water get away and restore normal sewer service.

In between then and now, there has been little paradise in this end of town. If I wasn't worrying when the basement would flood, I was busily building shelves, doing freelance computer work, rewiring major portions of the basement for better safety in the event of a flood, and working a full time job on top of all of that.

With this latest construction, the street (where it still exists) is a muddy mess and most of it has been broken up into pavement chunks by the heavy trucks that are coming in and out of the job site. With all the equipment around, it is nothing less than a joke to even try getting out of my driveway. In some cases walking around the equipment and mess has to be done with extreme care, if it can be done at all.

Apparently, grants had to be gotten before any more work could be done. Through some miracle, a grant was obtained and work toward a permanent solution started shortly thereafter on our fair street. While there were some downsides--the sudden conversion of all solid ground into the state's largest mud bath--everything seemed to be going well, until just a few nights ago. (For reference purposes, this page was written on December 8, 2004...) We had some rainfall, because Illinois is apparently losing a winter season...and that's where the trouble began. I woke up the next morning to my mom stating that the basement was flooding.

Thankfully this time steps had been taken to get most anything of any real value off of the floor. Long story short, I went downstairs in a pair of waders and walked around in the shallow water, shutting down computers as I went and then turning off power to the basement. It was a real trip to go down to the basement and be able to shut things down in an orderly way. Okay, maybe not a trip (though sitting there in a pair of waders and using my computer would have been!) but a lot better than the last time wihout any doubt.

I wandered around with the digital camera and took some pictures as well. You can see them here.

By the way--it ended up that the flooding was caused by a board that had been placed over a portion of pipe where the old sewer met the new one.

See the pictures.

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