It wasn't long til the girls were up, a bit scared and then the electricity went off. Soon an alarm begins to go off in the basement. We knew right away it was the alarm to let us know the water in the sump well had gotten too high. So the hauling began. After some hustle to find headlamps and buckets, the bailing began. It took us a bit to organize the troops, but after finding candles and towels we developed a system to haul the buckets full of water to the bathroom shower and dumped it down the drain. Jeff took a break to call the power company and found out that the power should be back by 7:30. Let's just say that wasn't quite the answer everyone was hoping for.
We had known that the sump pump had been working quite a bit with all of this rain, so it was a constant dipping of water just to keep the water from overflowing into the basement. Once we got into the routine, each of the girls took breaks to sleep for spurts. Unfortunately each of them have a day full of tests today.
Once it got light out we switched to hauling the water outside. It was soon after 7:30 then that the electric was back on. There was a great shout of gratefulness to have this luxury of power again. It does remind me of how many countries there are that lose power on a daily basis. It is something that we take so for granted.
We also struggled with how much water we were just throwing out. We thought of Haiti and Japan that could so benefit from all that water. Why is it that what others so desperately need, we often will just throw away without ever thinking twice about it.
So there were a lot of wet clothes and towels, sore fingers and backs, but each one helped out so much and we couldn't have done it without everyone's help. So let's just say that Jeff has already made the call to get a battery back-up. Hopefully this will be a one-time bonding, memory making experience.
