The Great Flood of March 2010

The Great Flood of March 2010 – (Water, Pumps and Generators)
The weather has certainly been extreme this year. Snow and ice this winter all across the country and now spring flooding in the Midwest, rain in Florida and heavy rain in the Northeast. Is it just a change in weather patterns or is it Global Warming?

Well it’s another rain event today and tomorrow in my neighborhood. The weather stations are predicting up to 3 inches more where I live in the Wilmington, MA. Maybe we will be lucky and the ground will absorb most of it.

“I spoke too soon. Although it rained last night, it stopped this morning and my basement was dry when I started writing this article. However, on Tuesday afternoon the water started coming up through the basement floor again and unfortunately they are predicting more rain tonight.”

When the local rivers flooded last week, we got about 8 inches of rain and as a result the water table went up and I could see large water puddles accumulating in my neighbor’s back yards. That is an indication that the water table is near ground level and basement flooding is eminent.

The Shawsheen River is located at the end of my street and broke a high water record last week of 10.8 feet. After the river floods, it usually takes another day for the water table to rise and nearby basements to flood. It then takes about a week for the water to recede and basements to dry out again.

Although I had two sump pumps going continuously since the rain last week, I still got a couple inches of water on the basement floor. Since the basement is partially finished I put all the furniture up on blocks and did not sustain any permanent damage.

After a week, the water table went down and I used a wet-vacuum to suck up all the excess water and dry the floor. Next I washed the floor with a 20% mix of bleach and water with a mop to kill any mold that might grow. You need to do this in a well ventilated basement with fans going and windows open. (I guess I will have to do it again in a couple of days.)

As I talked with neighbors along my street there are some who had a lot of water in their basements and some with no water. Some houses are built higher up and others lower but there seems to be no connection to whether or not they get water. Mother Nature just does whatever she wants.

Besides the height of the water table, it must also be the composition of the underground soil that will either absorb or divert the ground water flow toward or away from your house. I guess you need to know if your house is built on ground which is mostly sand, clay, an old peat bog or solid granite.

Most houses in my area have sump pumps installed in their basements to pump water from under the basement floor and out of the house. This usually keeps most basements dry most of the time except in extreme situations like this one. The outlet pipe from the sump pump should then be connected to a long hose or pipe that leads to the street sewer system or a drainage catch basin so that water is carried safely away from your property.

Some people will have their sump pump drop the water outside their basement window or in their backyard where it enters the ground again and goes right back into their basement to start over again. Although that seems to be just common sense, sometimes people have to learn by their mistakes.

Another problem is to determine where the water is coming from. Is it surface water that is coming off your house roof during heavy rain or from the street or a local stream and then pouring into your basement from above ground? Or is it ground water rising up through the basement floor from a high water table? If its surface water, you can install drain gutters and down spouts to take the water away from the foundation. You can also have the soil next to the house graded and sloped away from your foundation.

Although most good sump pumps will take care of the basement water, you also have to worry about an electric power outage. In a storm, trees may topple and pull down power lines and cut off your electric power. Without electricity your sump pumps won’t work.

That is when you need to have a backup battery on the pump or a gasoline operated generator which will provide power for the pump or even the entire house. A battery will only last about 12 hours and then needs to be recharged. If the power is out longer than that, you will need a generator.

A few years ago I bought a gasoline operated generator and had an electrician wire it to my house and put it on a separate circuit breaker box. It is not automatic so I have to manually switch the power over from the electric company to the generator when needed.

I keep the generator outside near a tool shed. During a power outage lasting more than a few hours, I start the generator outside where heat and gas fumes are well ventilated. I then turn off the main circuit breaker panel in my basement and turn on the generator circuit breaker panel. In an instant I now have generator electric power for the sump pumps as well as most of the appliances in my house. Although I test the generator periodically I have never had to use it. I guess I have some luck.

“Rain, Rain Go Away. Come Again On A Dry Summer Day.”

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