The flood

I am taking a little break from cleaning... which is truely one of my least favorite activities, to talk a little bit about what happened.

it was around 4:30ish yesterday when I was talking to my mom on the phone. I hung up the phone and decided to get some dinner... that's when i turned around and noticed that... there is water behind me. (the floor is kinda uneven) I immediately went to turn off everything and unplug it and try to get stuff up off the floor!!!!!!

I traced the water from the bathroom all of the way to the front. The first thing i went for was the windows... I knew it was raining and was pretty bad yesterday. and I leave the windows open so I can regulate the heat in my place that i can't turn off!!!

Both window ledges were dry... i went into the bathroom... and saw no leaks... and so I went to the front door...

now... my apartment is 5 steps down, so it's a basement level apartment. you go down steps and get to an iron gate, that gate will lead to a door which leads into the hallway, all concrete, etc... off that hallway, about 1 1/2 inches up... is my door. (very close to the outside door.)

I opened the front door and saw the whole hallway was flooded... but it didn't quite seem to be up to my door yet. (ultimately this wasn't good)

So I called the landlord... who was in florida (i didn't know that at the time...) and he said he would call the fire department and get someone over here...

30 minutes go by and i am literally taking 2 chinese takeout soup containers and scooping up water from the kitchen floor, which is getting worse and worse by the minute, and throwing it in the sink. I called the landlord again, and his wife picked up the phone and mentioned to me that they were going to a very important function... (i was thinking... oh... i'm sorry... i will just go back to SWIMMING IN MY APARTMENT YOU BIATCH!!!!!!!) but i said I understood. She told me to call 911, but that the whole city was flooded. In about 15 minutes... the fire department was here and found the source of the flooding.

One of the pumps that pump water from that main area had become dislodged from it's exit pipe and was spewing water on the floor. They fixed the problem, but apparently, they had no pumps or anything to get the water out of my apartment... WTF... So they leave... at least there is no more water coming in...

so i get a knock on the door. It's the maintenence guy coming to help out with his assistant. They come in and help me clean up most of the water. and then they go check the pumps... so... i am sitting in my place... getting most of the stuff up off the floor that i could and wiping the rest of the water... when my friend Ju Ow comes in... She looks around and tells me what a hot mess... and brings me icecream. (which i put in the freezer)

All of a sudden, as we are going through a couple things... i notice more water coming in from the back... WTF... everything is flooding all over again!!!!

At this point... i have low bloodsugar from not eating anything since 11:30 (it's now 9pm and i am a little depressed) plus... more water coming in just means more problems... i can't fix it and scooping it up is not going to help...

the two maintenence people are still here, but they are fighting the rest of the flood... apparently there are 3 pumps in the building... 2 of which, decided to go bad... so water was coming in from the bathroom...

Eventually...that night... the pumps were fixed and the water receded... I cleaned up the rest of the stuff... Ju had gone home an hour or so ago and I was just left by myself sopping up the water.

Things I lost (so far):

Area rug my mom picked out for me from my atlanta apartment... I trashed it
Photos of me and my ex from a cruise we went on.
Black and white photos of me and my parents/brothers
about 15 books of various natures (some were gifts from other people for when i moved to atlanta)
about 10 decks of tarot cards
a pack of gipsy witch fortune cards my grandmother gave me from the 1950s.
my work blackberry (YAY)
2 cell phones (one BRAND NEW ONE still works, but the screen sensitivity has SEVERELY DECREASED.)
a 2TB harddrive
an older computer which i had as a backup server
old notebooks from college
various computer equipment
a couple game cartridges
and an hour of time (DUE TO FRIGGING DAYLIGHTS SAVINGS)

I am sure there is more i am missing..., but that's about it for now...

I went out and got a bunch of cleaning supplies for the floor, lysol to try and get rid of microbes and mold and spores... a wet vac for any surprises later, and a de-humidifier... i hate cleaning... i hate water being where it's NOT SUPPOSED TO BE!

I'm just glad i was here to make that call... if i didn't call anyone... i would have lost EVERYTHING due to an electrical fire probably, as i wouldn't have been here to get things up... and how nice would that have been... coming home to a foot of water at home... that would have been a nice surprise.

I should count myself lucky-ish though... some people have had their cars float away.... the water was sooo bad.