On Saturday night, just as we were putting Galen to bed, water started leaking into our kitchen.
I raced outside, looked behind the house, and was shocked to see a huge river of water streaming past.
With all the rain we’d had, along with the soaked fields and some blocked drains, most of the water from the hill behind our house had decided to divert towards us. There is a bit of a slope down to a drain on the track behind the house. The drain couldn’t cope. The water started pooling, then, as it rained more, streaming past the house.
I went to check the drain and the water was above my knees.
Soon after this I went back inside and the water had started coming into our sitting room.
As quick as we could we took as much as possible upstairs (some things had already been damaged by the water), and with buckets, mops, towels and sheets, did our best to get rid of as much water as possible.
Unfortunately, with all the water outside, it was more or less a losing battle until we could stop the water from pooling behind the house. Andrew (the farmer) came over and built up a bit of a dam up the track which helped, but it still took a while for the water level to drop back down.
By this time there was 2-3 inches of water in our sitting room, and plenty more in the kitchen. I removed somewhere between 50 and 60 full buckets of water from the house, and Sherry removed plenty too.
Eventually everything settled down and we were able to mop up the last of the water, look down at our sodden carpet, and get some sleep.
On Sunday morning we ripped out the carpet and started packing. We have a house to stay at until our place is liveable again, but things are pretty manic at the moment.
We’ve had windows open and the fire going and the dehumidifier on. Hopefully the floor and walls will dry out quickly so that we can get new carpet in and the house back to a state where we can move back in. Of course, we can’t do this until we can guarantee that it won’t happen again. Hopefully we can sort out insurance stuff, arrange to have a wall or something put in behind our house to stop water pooling, and then go from there.
We’re all fine at least.
