LibriVox Forum

Wow, so Jasper insisted I get up this morning. He used every obnoxious trick in his repertoire and finally got my attention by banging the picture on the wall next to my head. So I got up, wandered blearily through the door and heard a funny noise, a hissing of sorts. I opened my eyes wider, looked over the banister to the lower level and realized my dining room and living room floor was covered in water.

I rushed down (oblivious to the thought of stepping on a floor covered in standing water, cords and powerstrips) and immediately grabbed an overstuffed B&N bag of books and pitched it to higher ground. I then rescued the xbox and tossed it in the recliner (priorities.) My next act was to open the door to the atrium and try to locate the source of the water, which only served to let in more water, so I did the next best thing and called my husband, who told me where to turn off the water and promised to come home right away.

I then continued my rescue of items on the floor which consisted of emptying bags of yarn to see if they had gotten wet.

So apparently my priorities are books, xbox, and yarn. What would your's be?

Yikes I hope everything is all right!

In answer the the question, my bedroom is actually on the ground floor and well.. so many priorities! There's my PC (although that'd be a pain as its a tower uni on the floor) and the books which are currently piled on the floor because there's no where to put them, my Game Cube, erm.. those are the most important things I think...

Oh, yes, I probably should have mentioned everything is ok. Finally got all the water cleaned up but it's not too bad because we have tile floors on a slab down here so no soggy carpet or leaking basement. (Thankfully we cleaned a bit yesterday so there were no actual piles of books on the floor like usual.)

What a disaster! Was it a leak, or flooding from another cause?

As I live on the second floor, it would have to get pretty deep to affect me, and there is so much electrical stuff I don't know what I would choose.

[It reminded me of a scene from the film Shaun Of The Dead, where Shaun and his friend are attacked by zombies (it is a comedy!) and throw LP records at them, but then begin choosing which records to throw and which to save! Very funny scene.]

I DO hope everything is OK.

It's a broken water pipe in the atrium. We have passive solar heat so the pipes in there are usually ok because the blocks stay warmish even at night but it was -15 this morning, I don't actually know how cold it got last night, so between everything being so frozen and then heating quite rapidly today...

The pipe in question is behind a very large hot tub sort of shoved into a corner so not movable and hard to get around to see what the problem is. We turned off the water to that area and will probably wait till spring thaw to try to fix it or get it fixed as the case may be.

Oy! Good luck - it sounds pretty nasty.

What would I save?

The main thing on the floor that would be ruined by water is Peter's Mac tower. After that.. some stuff on the bedroom floor and books in the lowest shelves.

This is an entirely different question from "What would you take if you had to evacuate?" And one that I've not thought about much.

-Catharine

Yeah, the computer is high on my list, too.

The cat, although she would probably take care of it herself.

My custom My Little Ponies, should any of them be in the danger zone.

A piece of antique furniture that is a family heirloom of sorts.

And now I think you need to get busy recording portions of this gem:

The Enemies of Books
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1302

What a depressing book. I am very thankful our library is on the second floor. We only have two bookcases down here and one has feet so it wasn't a problem and the water didn't quite get to the other. (If anyone is curious there are about 18 bookcases upstairs and we still have piles of books laying around because there are more books than will fit.)

kristin wrote: (If anyone is curious there are about 18 bookcases upstairs and we still have piles of books laying around because there are more books than will fit.)

I am green with envy! Not that I currently have the space for the small number of books (in comparison) that I currently posses, but.. 18 bookshelves.. wow!

The over abundance of books sounds extremely familiar to me....

I really hope there is not too much damage to the plumbing Kristin, I know what that's like, it happened to my aunt in her Poconos summer home (fun trip that was in the middle of winter!) BTW, I know this will sound like saying 'Watch out!' after you've been struck by a truck, but in future leave a tap trickling water on those especially frigid nights, it will prevent the water freezing in the pipes and bursting them.

As to what I would save, hmmm living in a flood zone here on the west coast of Florida -- and in a house that only has the one, ground floor, I have a box at all times prepared with all the essential paper work for home and personal documents. And the rest is put up on shelves to keep them out of the line of fire as it were. But the most important thing would be my son and his Kitty, couldn't survive with out those!

I have no answer to your question only the deepest sympathy for you in your misadventure.

Before you know it, it'll all be (gulp!) water under the bridge.

Sending good vibes your way...

Alan

(If it'll make you feel any better, my home owner's insurance is 5 times higher than most and I can't get flood insurance. (I live two streets from the Atlantic —'bout 30' above sea level.)

Man, I wish we had more bookshelves. We certainly have enough books to put them on!

You can build nice trashy bookcases out of planks and books! Or planks and canned-goods, if you're feeling elegant ;-)

I always wanted to make one using glass blocks as support.