The Great Flood of 06

I declare that as of Tuesday January 23^rd I am a Manitoban. The reason for my declaration is that Michelle and I were forced to divert our first flood since moving to the province. A flood that I hope is the great flood of 06.

The story begins on Sunday, which at -30C was the coldest day of the winter so far. Nothing truly spectacular happened that day except that it was cold and we finished the hardwood flooring in the bedroom! We went to sleep (in the office) knowing that we had done a good job and we were glad the house was warm.

On Monday we awoke a little late and a little tired and I noticed that for an inexplicable reason the winterized garage doors were open. This is odd because I had been out to the garage once but specifically remembered closing the door. Of course the door remote was in my pocket and I could have set it off putting on my pants that morning... we have no idea how long the doors were open. The temperature was still rising at -10 and by the end of the day it rained.

After work on Monday we voted, purchased our bedframe, borrowed my sister's wet-vac and I then tried to remove the last remnant of odor from our front room carpets using baking soda, soap and hydrogen peroxide. After an hour of work I was glad it was warmer out and I was contemplating what the next endeavour would be now that the floors in the bedroom were done. We watched as the conservatives only took a minority government and went to bed tired as usual.

That night is a blur, one maybe two trips to the bathroom but nothing out of the ordinary. When I awoke I took out my earplugs (an addiction I am trying to kick) and heard then gentle click, click, click of the water meter in the room below the office. That is when I realized with horror that Michelle had not used the bathroom recently and where the heck was water running?!? I startled Michelle awake and we started running around the house looking for running water. We found nothing until I went to check on the hot water heater and that is when I saw water coming to the drain from room with the electrical panel.

Running into that room I spotted water coming up from the floor at the spot where the water goes out to the apartment above the garage. This horrified me. I shut off the water to the apartment and the water meter stopped clicking. The water from the floor did not. Michelle went to the garage as I used my sister's wet-vac to stem the modest tide in the basement. Michelle returned with word of disaster: "This is nothing compared to the apartment". The tile entrance way, the bathroom and the garage floor were flooded about a 1/4 inch. It looks like the shower unit (at the front of the first floor) froze and the tab pushed out and then broke. When the apartment warmed up (it was 0C when we entered) the shower started spraying and water went down the pipes to drip on the floor, into the conduit back to the house, and sprayed out of the shower. Not a single square centimeter of drywall is affected! The water is shut off and the plumber will attack tomorrow (Thursday). It took 3+ hours to vacuum up the flooding and I am hoping that is the only issue we have with water in the house for a while.