Man did it rain hard Thursday night. Usually we might get one super cell that would ride over the top of this college town, but for Pete's sake we had one after the other. I had two and a half hours of sleep because of the anxiety the storm was causing me. The spine shattering booms of thunder that seem to be right out our window was enough to keep a dead man awake. I also get nervous about water coming into the basement. We have never had any problems with water, but I guess I am always wondering when the first time might be.We have had downpours before and the storm sewers handle it very well. We don't have a sump pump, instead we have a tile system that flows into a drain that goes to the regular sewer. In the event of a tsunami type of rain, the storm sewers can be overwhelmed and the standing water starts to drain in the manholes of the regular sewer, and thus providing the potential for sewer backup. This is what I fear.
In the past we have had a super cell dump about an inch of rain or so in an hour and our systems for drainage have been excellent. I worried for nothing. Imagine that if you can. Well, Thursday night was insane! We had 4.75 inches of rain by morning with another 2 inches that was forcasted for Friday.
Super cell after super cell Thursday night, but we caught a break on Friday. The 2 inches never came. From the photo's you can see a lot of freaking water standing in my neighbor's backyard. My tile was rushing with water and it was going down the drain just fine. I went to bed about 3:30am and checked the drain one last time before trying to get a couple of hours sleep before school. The drain was fine.
I woke up a couple of hours latter to some more massive booms and noticed that Sarah was in the shower. I told her to hurry because of the lightning. After I told her this I checked the drain again. There must have been a hick up somewhere because my drain backed up just a little bit. I would say no more than 7 feet in diameter. If I was to get water in my basement this is what I would want. Zero damage or inconvenience. I couldn't be more lucky. This was the first time I have ever received water in my basement and hopefully the last time. I guess the next time we have one super cell come by I will not freak out so much because now I know the system can handle at least 4 inches of rain over 8 hours. Do you guys have water in the basement stories? Meth, I think that you once said something about your basement in Waterloo. What was the deal with that?
6 comments:
My life is filled with water in the basement stories.
On Home Park in W'loo, there was a SEWAGE pump station at the end of the next block. The sewer line ran to the other end of my block and took a hard left. I'm not sure why, but when we got huge amounts of rain, the system would back up into our basement, occasionally leaving us with 4 inches of 'water' and some nasty nasty solids floating around. Once I recall the manhole cover in our front yard being shot about 15ft into the air. Manhole covers easily weigh in excess of 75 pounds.
Our current house has an occasional problem with water in the basement when it rains hard, but it's never something I can't stay ahead of with a shop vac and nothing in the danger zone is likely to be ruined by getting a little wet.
Glad to hear your system works so well. Nearly 5 inches in 8 hours is an insane amount of water.
Shoot me an e-mail of your address on Home Park. I would like to see where young Meth lived.
dang - that is mucho rain!!!
The worst thing about this storm was that it washed away about 50 bucks worth of grass seed right down the flipping drain beneath that loch you see in my neighbor's yard.
Good to hear the drainage is working so well for you.
Your constant use of the word "cell" to describe thunderstorm systems is a clear indication of the amount of time you spend listening to weathercasters. I'm pretty sure I never heard that word until the mid nineties.
I don't think my parents' home in Waterloo ever had water issues - but their little nieghborhood is kind of up on a hill.
We've had a couple of issues in MN with some seepage through the concrete block (actually, from the foundation over the concrete block is more like it); especially on the front side of our house. We've done a little grading with mulch around our bushes, but I've come to realize that's not something you do just once and forget about. That mulch composts in the open air, turns to earth and settles. A couple of years later you're bringing a couple of Saturn-loads back in for a re-grading. Ever since the attention we've given that area, though, we've really not had an issue. We do use a humidifier during the summer.
Super cell is a word heard a lot these days coming from the lips of weather folks. These cells caryy a lot of energy and can dump like dumping was going out of style. My weather class at UNI used the term offten. I don't like super cells at all.
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