The flood of March 2010 They say "Beware the Ides of March". Well said it is. We had three days of heavy rain thanks to a Nor'easter, and when I went downstairs for morning prayer on Monday, March 15, there was quite a bit of water in the basement. That day I spent 16 hours pumping water and bailing with the aid of a wet vac. Laurie helped for many hours as well. It brought to mind the phrase from Stan Rogers' song "Barrett's Privateers": "We were 91 days to Montego Bay, pumping like mad men all the way..."

But after 16 hours I had to quit, and so I abandoned the efforts for a few hours sleep; when I got up at 4 am on Tuesday, the water was worse, but had not actually got as high as to cover the lower shelves of cabinets, or affect the furnace. So the previous days work had been a great help.

With the waters this high, I was able to let the pump do all the work for the first hour and a half.

Running the hose out the window, I installed some wood in place of one of the glass panes, for future use.

April 3rd update After the floods of March 14-16, we had another two days of rain the following week; we didn't experience any flooding but many people in the area did. And then the rains begain again at midnight on March 29th, and we had rain all day Monday and Tuesday. By Tuesday at noon, our basement was once again in water, roads were flooded out, and people were being evacuated in small boats! Finally by Wednesday night I had the basement pumped out, and we're looking at good weather through Easter. The Enterprise reported that we had 18.1 inches of rain in March, a record-breaking rainfall that we hope we will not soon see repeated!