It doesn't rain in Seattle, it pours!!

So, if you haven't seen it on the news, the Northwest, particularly Seattle, WA is being FLOODED with water. As of this afternoon, the Seattle area was "cut-off" by land from the rest of the country. All four passes over the mountains were closed for avalanche and mud slide concerns. The I-5 coridoore down to Portland, OR has been closed because it is under 5 feet of water for about 5 miles and recently they are saying that just south of Bellingham, WA I-5 is covered with water, which cuts us off from the North. The rain started to really come down on Tuesday morning after a light day of rain on Monday. By Tuesday night they were saying that the floods were going to be bad and folks began preparing. By Wednesday afternoon, the main highway from our home was closed, and many of the side roads in the valley were closed too. It was getting bad. Luckily, we live on the top of a hill, so it doesn't flood that often. We are very fortunately to not have flooding problems. We see on the TV that a town just 15 miles from us has been evacuated and is under about 3 feet of water for 7 miles down the main road. Super Crazy!!

Some of you may remember the water trouble we came home too last Christmas after our time in MI. To make a long story short, our refridgerator had leaked at the connection and filled our kitchen with water, between the laminate floor and the lanoliam that was under it. The water seeped into the living room carpet and we had to get a new floor in our kitchen. Needless to say, Ken and I are a little experienced when it comes to water damage.

Last night, just after I got off the phone with Ken (he was on his way home and he'd been in the car for at least an hour and a half) I was standing by our kitchen table in our dining room and thought that my socks were getting a little wet. My first thought was that the table is next to the doggie door, and the dogs tend to run in and right under the table. So I wasn't concerned. But then something told me to check the floor again. So I did... And the more I searched the more I saw that the carpet wasn't just damp, but it was soaked, especially under the chairs and table legs. So I moved all of our furniture out of the dining room, to help start it to dry and to help Ken because he'd have to do more investigation when he got home.

Ken got home, and opened the front door to ssee all the furniture moved... "Welcome Home, Honey!" I said! "What happened here!" Ken exclaimed! I explained to him what happened and that I thought it was the tree outside our dining room window that might be the culprit. He donned his water shoes baseball cap and head lamp and went out to investigate. He returned and said nothing looked out of the ordinary. So I suggested that he go under the house to see if there was flooding down there. So we cleaned out the closet to access the trap door and he went down (only after he changed out of his work clothes and into some other "play" clothes). He found the culprit. In the words of my husband, "The idiots who built the house, put insulation around a pipe that goes to the ground." So the water was puddling down there (not a ton - but water) and it was wicking up toward our house through the insulation in the floor. We'd noticed about 6 months after we moved in that a drywall seam on that wall of the house had cracked and the paint was peeling. My dad thought it was from the house still settling. Although we've never fixed it, I always thought it was from water or a leak in the window above it. But it seems like it it was gettng worse and then it's fine. Well, once Ken discovered that this was why the floor was wet, I also told him that the wall started to crack right after a large rainstorm after we moved in. I distinctly remember that!!

Well, my husband fixed the problem under the house and by 10pm that night, the floor was already starting to dry. We'd pulled the carpet and pad up to see that the floor boards were wet. So we put a fan to dry the floor and pad out and then today, I've been running the fan to help the carpet dry out. It is starting to smell a bit so i might have to clean that area again before we tack the carpet down again...

Anywho, that's our exciting evening last night. Today, it's hasn't rained as much as they predicted so the ground is starting to dry around the house and we don't have so much standing water in the grass anymore. Hoepfully other homes will begin to dry out too!