The Storm!

We had a nasty storm a few weeks ago, one so bad we had to go down to the basement. This rarely happens because we live on the top of the bluff next to the river, but it happened. Once the sirens blew, we went down the hatch.

Before I continue with the story, let me describe our basement. The entrance to the basement is in the '98 addition, you go from the addition straight into the '33 addition. From there you go into the old kitchen in the basement (complete with plaster, a freezer, a trapdoor from the upstairs, and a dirt floor). Turning a corner in the front you find the coal room, then the furnace. Further back you go underneath the kitchen, and even further back you get to the entrance to the crawl space under the addition.  Just imagine a giant U.

So we went down and waited out the storm. It took about an hour, but it passed without causing too much damage in the city. The worst thing that happened was a number of basements flooded. Fortunately for us, our basement stayed dry.

Our crawlspace, however, did not.

While coming up out of the basement I heard a great deal of rain. Noting that the old porch and crawlspace doesn't have any windows, I needed to investigate. Grabbing a light, I found a cascade of water pouring down the wall. Not a drip...a cascade.

Obviously something was seriously wrong, obviously I couldn't do anything about. it at the time.

Later I looked, it was obvious that this had been a problem for quite some time, and had been partially fixed, but the bean had completely rotted away, and was left unsupported. This will probably be the most aggravating jobs I have to do. I'll explain...

I've already described the basement, the entrance to the basement is on one side of the U, the entrance to the crawlspace is on the other. In the crawlspace is and old concrete stoop that was about 2/3rds the width of the house. So I'll have to crawl around that to get to a spot which is right next to the entrance...now you should understand my aggravation.

Anyway, it turns out this was the least of my problems...