Water + Electricity

What happens when you mix a little rain and some electricity? Or, in our case, no electricity? The power went out in parts of Wanaque around 3:00 this afternoon. The electricity was out in the Meadowbrook section up to our part of Wanaque. The Wanaque School did manage to stay lit tonight although the High School was dark. Normally this isn’t a bad thing except for the fact that it had been raining for a fair amount of the day. Around 6:45 we hit our limit and the water started to rise in the sump pump hole. We had a real bad luck streak since my battery backup should have covered this situation but didn’t. We couldn’t run the sump pump and water started to come up the french drains.

I got a little lucky here in that I was offered a generator if I could come pick it up. Off I went to get the generator while Sue and Kimmy worked on getting stuff off the floor in the basement. Katie would have helped but she has been sick the last day or so and it wasn’t an option. Kimmy really did a great job.

I get the generator, test it to make sure it works which it does and load it into the car. No sooner do I get it into the car then the power kicks in at 7:11. The sump pump immediately starts working and we catch up to the water in no time. We still have to finish the cleanup – a bunch of stuff got wet and we have a rug on the floor down there but all in all it was not the worst. Just means that we will probably get rid of the rug and a few things. Of course I also will need a new battery backup for the pump or a new pump – depends on what I can find. That plus a generator may be making a home here soon. So that has been our eventful evening.