Basement apartments are great for a lot of reasons: they are cheap, cool in the summertime, and so on. But sometimes, a basement is NOT where you want to be, especially today. It has been raining a lot this summer, especially for Utah, which is usually a desert. Today, we rode our bikes home through a pretty intense summer rain storm. But we've done that before. Right after we finished eating dinner, however, we opened the door of our apartment to a flooding hallway. The space between the two basement apartments was quickly filling with water, dirty water for that matter. Matt opened the door that leads outside to the stairs and found the stairwell filled with four + inches of water. Both of the drains were clogged (of course). Matt grabbed a bucket and started bailing out the stairwell. I was definitely worried. At this point, it didn't seem like the storm was letting up at all. It was even hailing for a little while. We called our landlord, but there wasn't much he could do right away. We pulled out all our towels and lined the floor by the door. By that time, the water had seeped through the closet that leads to the water heater and started to flood our kitchen floor as well. At this point, we had used all our towels, but our kind upstairs neighbors, Haley and Mike, brought down all their clean towels for us to lay out on the floor in our kitchen. Matt and our neighbor across the hall tried to unclog the drains and help the water clear out of the hallway and stairwell, which eventually cleared. Mike told us that there were people in Ogden and other areas of Utah that had from 4-6 feet of water in their basements from the same storm. Wow--we are so blessed! I have no idea what we would do if our home was flooded by that much water. We're lucky that our carpet is just wet around the door and the kitchen. It could have been much, much worse. We are so glad that our possessions were spared damage. All we need to do is put a fan on our carpet and mop our kitchen floor. What a relief! It was definitely an adventure, but one I'd rather not repeat.
Matt bailing us out. The hallway right outside our apartment is at the same level as this flooded stairwell.
Matt is throwing the water out onto the driveway.
Our wet carpet. The water spread more after the picture was taken.
Our flooded kitchen floor.
At least you have your appliances spared, but man, neither I would attempt a take two at a flooded house drama. We had many when I was a kid back in my granny’s place. With experience, I learned that if your basement is full or nearly full of water, pump out just 2 or 3 feet of water each day. If you drain the basement too quickly, the pressure outside the walls will be greater than the pressure inside the walls. That may make the walls and floor crack and collapse. How are you both now? Allen Hoffman
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