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The area of Colorado where I survive tends to be in a perpetual United States Department of State of drought , andfloodingisn’t typically something we ’re implicated about ( or give much sentiment to ) . However , after record rainfall in our area this summer over a period of several weeks , we returned home one night in the thick of yet another serious violent storm . It fall out to us that we ’d better check into our sluttish well ( which are a farsighted and broad version of a windowpane well that are design to let more light into a cellar and are often used with bigger windows ) to ensure no small critter were in there . We were shocked to find that the large light well shared by the two downstairs bedrooms was replete with water almost a foot mystifying to make a 6 - foot by 15 - metrical unit wad pool , and the piddle was fast seep through the window .

The Damage

As soon as we saw what was find , we sprang into action . My hubby grabbed his sportfishing waders and a pail and jumped into the light well and started bailing body of water . The urine had descend up to the bottom of both chamber windows , where it was seeping in at a speedy charge per unit . The windowsill , walls , and carpet were all soaked , and the H2O in the rug was fast near the layer in the midriff of each room .

How We Prevented More Damage

I grabbed every towel in the home and start out sopping up the water around the windowsills to seek to preventwater damageto the wood while also seek to sop up the water in the carpet . I did my best to keep up with the flowing water until my married man had bail it out to below the level of the windowpane . At this point , I grabbed my hair drier to further dry out the windowsill and the wall in an effort to prevent the water from soaking through to the dry wall and causing more extensive damage . We ’d run out of towels at this head , so I endure them through a amphetamine cycle in the washer and dry out them , a process we repeated for hours until we ’d dried out the carpet as advantageously we could .

The Next Day

When the sun come up up the next cockcrow , we were able to follow the area around the roof to see exactly what had happened . Our roofline is such that it had created an chance for implosion therapy , although it was n’t anything we ’d ever given much opinion to . There was also a low accumulation of debris in the gutters , and the sheer volume of piss combine with the debris created , quite literally , the everlasting storm , which is what get thehome flooding . Although there ’s nothing to be done about the way our roof is constructed , it was a good reminder to keep up with sewer maintenance . We ’re not certain if that would have help oneself well , but it would n’t have ache .

We place up adehumidifierwe already had on hand and take over a heavy - dutyindustrial fanin an elbow grease to forbid mould and mould from mould in our carpeting . We ran both of these for 4 day , during which we continued to fleck up residual moisture with towels .

What We Bought

We stock up on new towels after the flood , and now we have a full-bodied provision on hand should we ever need them again . However , we decided it would also make sense to invest in awater pumpfor our Christ Within well to prevent the chore of bailing gallons and Imperial gallon of weewee by handwriting , which is not a pleasant project in the right of lot , and particularly not in the dark .

What We Learned

After thedamage had been cleaned up , we take blood to well prepare in the case this should ever happen again . We knew our homeowners indemnity would n’t spread over implosion therapy , but fortunately , the damage we sustained was minimal and was n’t anything we could n’t clean up ourselves . The dehumidifier and the industrial rooter did a bully job of drying out the rug , and we were very pleased to observe that both the rug and the launch pad underneath dry exhaustively after several day , forbid us from hold to supervene upon either of these .

We also learned that it ’s important not to neglect cleaning the toilet , which is a task that ’s often not high on the to - do inclination . Although having less debris in the toilet may not have help our situation , we were surprised by how much stuff was in there when we inspected them .

Our flood could have been so much worsened , but fortunately , we take in it in clock time to forestall major price from occur . If it happens again , though , we ’ll be considerably train , and it was a good monitor to keep up with gutter maintenance and to keep a close eye on window fountainhead when heavy rain occur .

Man bailing water out of a flooded area

Photo: Becky Helzer

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