What the heck is a sump pump, anyway?

A sump pump. It was listed on the appliance list for 99% of the MLS listings we looked at in Wheaton. I didn't know what it was, but I thought if most of the houses in Wheaton had them, we should make sure one came with the house we purchased. And, I'm happy to report that our new house does indeed have a sump pump.

After arriving on the scene I began asking questions about the sump pump. Just what is it and what purpose does it serve? I was directed to a closet in our basement that houses the plumbing and was shown a large, open, plastic bucket buried in the floor with all sorts of tubes and wires (that's what girls call that sort of thing.) This was the sump pump. It's job? To keep water out of our finished basement. I liked it already.

Throughout our time living in Wheaton, I have noticed the sump pump running A LOT. You can hear water trickling into the bucket, and after the water level gets to a certain height, the pump kicks on and pumps the water out into our yard. I have to say, this was a pretty scary thing the first time I witnessed it. The water sometimes pours in, and if the the bucket gets full and the pump doesn't come on, well, the water seeps over the rim and is officially on the floor of your basement. Not a good thing.

But, our sump pump has proven incredibly efficient. It does, however, have one tiny flaw. It is powered by electricity. This becomes problematic when rainstorms bring with them both a lot of rain, and in some extreme cases, a power outage.

We were advised to buy a back-up sump pump that would run when the power goes out, or to get a generator (like our neighbors at the end of our cul-de-sace have) to keep our regular one going. This is a costly fix to a problem that supposedly rarely occurs. Well....rarely until yesterday.

The kid's second day of school started out fine. Halle and I came home and I began to work on setting up my scrapbook room. About 2:30, the sky went really dark. By 3 it was apparent that rain was coming. Since Wheaton Christian Grammar School doesn't have organized carpool, I had told my boys to cross Harrison Street with the school crossing guard and meet me at the corner of Harrison and Irving. This is much easier than trying to get into an already overcrowed school parking lot. I was proud of my brilliant plan until I realized that I didn't have a back-up plan in place in case of severe weather. Who knew I would need this on the SECOND day of school, but evidently, I did.

The boys get out of school at 3:25, and because I sensed the rain coming, I thought I would leave early and get a spot in front of the school in the hopes they would see me and not attempt to cross the street in the pouring rain. At 3:00 I decided to help Halle get into her shoes and head to the school. I could not find her shoes anywhere. I looked in her room, and all over both the main floor and the second floor. I had a brief brain lapse that we have an entire basement, but I never thought to look for the shoes there. (I found them there later.)

I finally told her to get her sandals instead because I wanted to get in the car and on our way before it started raining. At exactly 3:09 a SEVERE storm hit our house. Enormous trees were being tossed around outside like leaves. I seriously thought all of our trees were coming down. I should have grabbed my child and headed for the basement, but I was so amazed by the force of the winds that I stood here looking out my kitchen window almost frozen. Almost simultaneously, the power went out. Oh well I thought.

The power going out was really the least of my worries. I didn't care about my trees or the fact that my new car was in the driveway instead of in my garage. No, I was worried about my boys. School gets out at 3:25. It was now about 3:20 and I was not yet on my way to retrieve them. This was only the second day of school. Would they be worried that I wasn't there? I guess I wasn't really thinking clearly....I was more reacting like a mother hen whose chicks had scattered. I mean, clearly they would not open the doors to the school and shove my children outside in the middle of a severe thunderstorm with (as I learned later) a TORNADO WARNING in effect. I always get the tornado watch and warning confused, but evidently WARNING is the bad kind! Ha Ha!

My power was out so I couldn't call the school, and I have a hard time getting a cell phone signal in my house. I felt isolated and unsure what to do.

We are remodeling our bathroom. Sounds like I'm completely changing the subject, but stay with me. Anthony has been coming to our house for the last 5-6 weeks, working on the remodel. He usually goes upstairs and shuts himself in what will be our new bathroom and I never see him. Well, I'm glad to report that in the midst of the storm he came walking down the stairs. Whew! Another adult to consult. He had been able to get his cell phone to work and his wife had advised him that the public school was holding all of the kids until 4 pm. I felt safe in assuming that our school would do something similar. So, I stopped lamenting about not picking up the boys. I took a deep breath and decided to wait until the storm blew over before heading to the school to get them. (I know, brilliant, right?)

But then Anthony mentioned the power being out......and oh no! The sump pump was of course NOT PUMPING WATER!

We both went tearing down into the basement and there was the large open bucket, half full of water. The strange thing is that no water was pouring in. Usually, throughout the day I can hear water trickling in and the pump coming on and pushing it back out. Not today. It just sat there, not moving in or out. Weird, I thought. We were getting pounded by all of this rain, and the sump bucket sat there, unchanged.

I again turned my attention to getting my boys. The hard rain and wind really lasted only about 15-20 minutes. I left at 3:30 to get the boys. As I pulled out of my driveway, I couldn't believe all of the debris in the streets! The police had barricades everywhere for trees had been blown over and were covering the road. The power lines at the end of our street had been blown apart. Picture this....the pole was snapped in half and the bottom part was lying in the ditch, and the top part, still attached to the wires, was suspended in the air. Interesting. Probably the cause of our power outage.

I carefully maneuvered my way through the soggy streets to the school, chaging my normal route to avoid intersections that were completely underwater. On my way, I saw a tree that had been snapped in half in someone's front yard and had landed on their house. All things considered, our house and trees handled the wind.

This is a tree that went down across the street from us.

More damage across the street.

Debris in yards.

(These pictures are MINOR compared to what I saw later today!!!!!)

When I arrived at the school, I realized of course, that they had kept all the kids inside until their parents came to get them. Why should I have worried about that? It took us 30 minutes or more to get home from what is usually a 5 minute drive.

We got home to find the power still out. The rain had stopped, so I was feeling ok. I had been praying for the power to come on and for no more rain. The prognosis was good....for now. About 5:30 I realized that it was going to get dark early and we still had no power. I began to prepare for the worst thinking that at any moment the power would click on. I checked the sump pump again. No movement in the water. How could that be???? I left and gathered candles and flashlights still hoping that they would not be necessary. And then I heard the thunder. Large clapping thunder, with lightning. The kind that scares children. And adults with sump pumps not working because the power is out.

I became aware of some activity on our cul-de-sac, so I went out to find out what the neighbors thought. Is this weather normal? (NO!) Do they usually get the power on quickly? (USUALLY!) Is it supposed to keep raining? (YES!) And then the rain came POURING down. No horrendous winds this time, just buckets of rain. YIKES! I accepted that the power was not likely to come on anytime soon, and so decided to prepare my house for the dark and then turn my attention to the sump pump.

Some of the neighbors were pooling together at our next door neighbor's house--the Woods. I sent my kids over there, fully intending to follow. I grabbed my flashlight and decided to check the pump once again. Ok...movement in the water level. And rising, although slowly. I decided to BE the sump pump! I got a large cup and began to move water from the bucket in the floor to 5 gallon buckets, haul the water upstairs and dump it in the kitchen sink, for pouring it out in the basement or back outside would have defeated my purpose. I probably scooped close to 50 gallons out of the bucket. To my amazement, the water level did not change at all. (*Note to self: this does not help. I'm still bewildered as to why, but it doesn't none-the-less.) I became aware that all of my children were next door so I ventured outside to check on them.

Karen lives two doors down from me, and right next door to our BRILLIANT neighbor with the generator. When the second wave of rain came, she smartly got an extension cord and plugged her sump pump into Kareem's generator. When I hit the scene, the Wood's, who live next door to me but two houses away from Kareem were busy stringing extension cords together to plug THEIR sump pump into the generator. I thought the situation hopeless for me, so I asked Wood's to please send my kids home and told them that I was going to go back to my bucket in the basement and scoop water out of it all night. I said, "I'm going back home to FIGHT!" determined that our basement would not flood.

Brilliant neighbor with a generator (3 houses down).

Pause a moment. Is anyone wondering where Johnny is? He was DRY in San Jose, CA. Upon our move to Wheaton, Johnny's travel stopped almost abruptly. This was maybe the second trip he's taken during the week since we moved. He's had to go to a few weekend conferences, but for the most part, he's been home every night. Call it lousy timing. I know he felt helpless in CA knowing what I was dealing with, but I was on my own.....at least I thought.

I went back down to my basement and started packing towels all around the sump pump bucket, watching the water level rise. Then I heard a knock on my basement door. I looked up and there was my next door neighbor. He said, "we've got Karen's house and our house hooked up to the generator, and you're next! Grab some 3-prong extension cords and come to our house." Wow. I never expected that. How generous! Kareem was sharing his power, and Reid was going to help get us plugged in in the absence of my husband.

When it was all said and done, it probably looked hilarious. Extension cords were strung all over our neighborhood like Christmas lights. Reid was careful to tie loose knots in the cords where each one connected together, and careful to keep them up off the ground so that they were not in puddles of water. We draped them over drink coolers, trees, buckets covered with frisbees, you name it. BUT, it worked! They plugged me in and I heard the sweet sound of the sump pump doing it's job! Praise the Lord! Our basement was spared.

Water cooler housing live extension cord wires and keeping them dry.


Extension cords draped over trees heading into our backyard.

It continued to rain hard all night, and the generator continued to pump water all night. Our power came back on around midnight, but I was too afraid to take my pump off the generator for fear the power would go out again. After all, it was still raining.

I awoke to find the power still on and the pump still running. I plugged it back into my own power source and it worked just fine! Whew. Then I went outside to survey the area. The neighbors that live on the left side of me didn't pipe into the generator because their basement is not finished. They got about 2 inches of water in their basement. If I wasn't already, I became compeltely aware that that would have been us as well. Wow! What a night.

I will wrap up the already too long story with a few points of interest. Evaluate this situation with God's hand in it:
1) Why did I not think to look in the basement for Halle's shoes before the storm hit? God protected us, that's why! Had I found the shoes, I would have put them on her feet and left the house. I would have been on the road when the storm hit! God totally protected us by keeping us in the house. This was no coincidence.

2) Why was the sump pump bucket not filling up with the first rain storm? The only answer is God was protecting us yet again. I could not have gotten it plugged into the generator at that time. I had to get the boys and the rain hit too fast. God knew that I could not handle a basement flood after the "trauma" of moving 1000 miles away from my home.

3) How often do I have people working in my house? Hardly ever. This is the first time we've done a re-model. The fact that Anthony was here was a tremendous help to me. It kept me calm and helped me make better decisions.

4) Why weren't any of us electocuted when we were running around in the rain, and lightning, sopping wet, WITH EXTENSION CORDS?? Easy answer. God is not finished with us yet!

5) And lastly, what a blessing of great neighbors. Everyone was out in the rain lending a hand. Even our neighbors with the unfinished basement that DIDN'T tap into the generator were out in the rain, offering their extension cords to protect their neighbor's basements. Thank you Lord for placing us in this place, with these people that have accepted us and already love us. What an extension of you! I will be forever grateful!

School is out today. Not for the reasons I would have thought school would be cancelled here (aka SNOW!) So, my neighbors invited us to go have lunch with them today. Maybe I'll get a deep dish pizza. How else do you celebrate weathering a Chicagoland storm?