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Old 05-05-2008, 06:35 AM
 
411 posts, read 894,377 times
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Updating quickly before I get out of here... Forest and his family are holding steady. Water has dropped OUTSIDE nicely, inside still not so much. The water is now OUT of the living room, but the basement is still full. During the flood Forest learned that his sewage pipes were damaged in the flooding, so he's working on that as of now. This morning he's running to get some more parts/pipes/etc. to work on it.

Otherwise, things are getting back to normal around there. It's a rough time, but they'll get through it. Their modem has died due to water, and their phone lines are out as well. They'll be back online ASAP. Forest is grateful for the thoughts and prayers from all of you. I'm on my way out of state, as MW said, but I will check in if I can while I'm gone. Will be speaking to Forest and family all along, as I'm sure Star will, so she can update if need be. Thanks Star!
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Old 05-05-2008, 07:13 AM
 
Location: Sunrise County ~Maine
1,698 posts, read 3,320,588 times
Reputation: 1131
Quote:
Originally Posted by KiddinAroundFarm View Post
Updating quickly before I get out of here... Forest and his family are holding steady. Water has dropped OUTSIDE nicely, inside still not so much. The water is now OUT of the living room, but the basement is still full. During the flood Forest learned that his sewage pipes were damaged in the flooding, so he's working on that as of now. This morning he's running to get some more parts/pipes/etc. to work on it.

Otherwise, things are getting back to normal around there. It's a rough time, but they'll get through it. Their modem has died due to water, and their phone lines are out as well. They'll be back online ASAP. Forest is grateful for the thoughts and prayers from all of you. I'm on my way out of state, as MW said, but I will check in if I can while I'm gone. Will be speaking to Forest and family all along, as I'm sure Star will, so she can update if need be. Thanks Star!
Oh my, I was worried about looking at this thread.
I'm sorry Forrest and everyone around him is dealing with all of this flooding. It's been so difficult to see the news and how the water is affecting so many homes.
I wish I had words to help or even encourage. It's a helpless feeling.
Tami~peachie
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Old 05-05-2008, 07:53 AM
 
Location: Maine
5,054 posts, read 12,364,202 times
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Oh Forest! I feel so bad for you guys. I wish we were up there so we could come over and lend a hand! Hang in there, Friend!
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Old 05-05-2008, 04:02 PM
 
Location: Corinth, ME
2,712 posts, read 5,625,882 times
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He should be back online shortly to read all your well wishes. We stopped by this afternoon and things are drying out; apparently the level of the water in the house (basement at this point) corresponds to the level of the water in the ground. It is just above last year's high water mark, going down slowly.

His modem and a bunch of other computer stuff got damaged but has been replaced and as we left, he headed in to get back online again.
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Old 05-05-2008, 04:44 PM
 
Location: Forests of Maine
37,244 posts, read 60,963,154 times
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Here I am.

Sorry about my having been off-line for the past few days.

We have been dealing with a bit of high water.

We have some photos of the process and should be getting them online soon.

Having spent a couple decades on subs, this degree of 'flooding' is far milder than what I have experienced in the past.



As the saying goes: "May you be blessed to live in interesting times"

We live a 'blessed life', of very interesting times.



I will tell one story of an Ooops that I made.

The other day, I confuse which day lately, I was driving into town, and saw water on the road. I came up close to the water, and I could see an island of pavement up ahead. So I drove the 100 yards through the water, and came up out of the water onto that island. Now from this island looking further ahead, trying to see how far it was to the next island of dry pavement, I observed logs floating across the road. So I decided that it may have been too deep to continue, so I turned around. As I was driving the 12 miles around, I called 911. I told them where the water had gone over the road. The dispatcher told me that the road was closed. I said that maybe the road should be marked. He seemed to think that logs floating across the road was a good marking that the road was closed.





wait for it ...





Dispatcher: "What are you from away"?

LOL
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Old 05-05-2008, 05:06 PM
 
Location: Texas
107 posts, read 225,321 times
Reputation: 156
Forest~

I am so sorry to hear of your troubled times but am truly impressed that you still seem to see the bright side of things. Must be all that wisdom you got while on the subs, huh? Looks like I may miss meeting you this trip as I have started back further south again but wanted to let you know I was thinking of you and each time I see a honeybee you come to mind! Hope all drys out soon.

Stacie
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Old 05-05-2008, 05:21 PM
 
Location: Forests of Maine
37,244 posts, read 60,963,154 times
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I enjoy reading of your travels

Things are wet here, go enjoy your sight-seeing. I hope that you do have lots of fun!
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Old 05-05-2008, 06:51 PM
 
Location: Forests of Maine
37,244 posts, read 60,963,154 times
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When the river came up, we got to running a 5hp gas-fueled fire pump, in our livingroom to move water from inside to outside. As the river continued to rise, it appeared that perhaps the pump was not keeping pace with the rising water. At one point the fire hose burst and it gave us an exciting 'fountain' of water in our livingroom, that hit the ceiling with force and shot water in all directions.

Until that moment my desk had been dry.

After that moment my desk was drenched. My keyboard and mouse were destroyed.

Our modem and router are both located down in our livingroom. And I forgot to remove them to higher locations, until after it was too late. So I had to go into Bangor today and get replacements.

Of course when the river level got to well above the height of our foundation, and we had water pouring in on all four sides of our house, it became apparent that perhaps we were not going to keep our home dry.

Fortunately when I built the floor joists, I put the floor one foot above the foundation level. The mudroom at our front door is at the foundation level [and set at a 1:12 slope so it drains into a deck drain] so it flooded. And our living room floor is four foot below our main floor, so it flooded.
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Old 05-05-2008, 08:11 PM
 
Location: South Portland, Maine
2,356 posts, read 5,693,982 times
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Hello Forest, I am gladd to hear from you, as this means you are now high and dry...or at least mildly damp. Its also good to see you are in good spirits. I cannot say I would have been able to handle your situation with as much grace, I have never had to deal with anything like that. I hope your good spirits mean everything is working out ok?

Hopefully you will not have to deal with another situation like this again, but, is there anything you will be able to do that for the future that would have made a difference?
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Old 05-05-2008, 10:38 PM
 
Location: Forests of Maine
37,244 posts, read 60,963,154 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by flycessna View Post
Hello Forest, I am glad to hear from you, as this means you are now high and dry...or at least mildly damp. Its also good to see you are in good spirits. I cannot say I would have been able to handle your situation with as much grace, I have never had to deal with anything like that. I hope your good spirits mean everything is working out ok?

Hopefully you will not have to deal with another situation like this again, but, is there anything you will be able to do that for the future that would have made a difference?
Thank you

Most of our wiring is up high, which was good.

I am putting in a sewage pump with a 2" outlet and plumbing it in permanently with our grey water system. It should speed up routine de-watering evolutions. But really once the water goes above the foundation height, there is no method of pumping it out faster than it comes in.

I have thought about a levee. But like even today, running a fire-pump removes water but in moments the water in our basement rises again. This soil has multiple interlaced layers of aquifer. The hole that was dug to lay our foundation cut right into the water table. It was fine when the river was low. When the river goes up, so does the water table; above 16 foot, then water comes up in our basement. I did pour a lot of concrete in our basement, and last year I put down a lot of 'hydro-plug', however I just can not seem to completely seal our basement.

A levee around our house, might keep out the above ground river water, but it would not stop the water from coming up out of the ground.

I do need to look at anchoring things down. So that when our house does fill with water, less things float and move around.

I knew that our floor joists / sub-flooring would float up. So when I made the posts that support it, I set them on concrete blocks and I metal strapped them onto the concrete blocks. I figure that they will likely float up, at least when they settle again, they will usually land on their supports.

The floor to settle, and find that their posts are gone or supports missing or out of placement, could be considered 'bad' [in a relative manner].

But I did not figure on the electric water heater floating. A metal tank full of water, I thought should stay put. It did float, and it knocked out some plumbing. Which I had to wait for the water to go down a bit, before I could get in there to isolate the domestic water leaks. I have experience diving in flooded tanks to do plumbing work, but I would rather not do that kind of work again.

We have a series of 55-gallon drums with faucets, down stairs filled with potable water. [just as a back-up for when power goes out] they floated and moved around a lot. As did our septic tank. So far these things appear to have been fairly minor.

I think that proper planning makes these incidences less painful in the long run.

None of our food stores got wet. Sealed 5-gallon buckets of: sugar, flour, coffee, beans, rice, etc. Are all just as good as the day they were each sealed.

We had our chick incubator down low, and had to move it higher. It survived and is scheduled to have our next hatching on 11May.

Our chick brooder was low. I had to quickly put together a different brooder and all of our chicks were moved up into it.

Our bottle-feeding kids had to be moved up high.

I have a large radial arm saw, which we left down in the basement, so it may have been damaged. I do not know yet. Though we did get our welding stuff up away from harm.

I have dealt with much worse 'flooding' incidences in the past, with slightly greater consequences. So I think that we have dealt with this situation in an appropriate manner.

Last edited by Submariner; 05-05-2008 at 11:23 PM..
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