Disaster, but not like the TNG episode
I turned 31 this weekend, and had a fantastic time among my friends here in Kansas City. I went to bed last night sleepy and content, cozy in my bed. I was roused by the call of nature at about 6am. As I stepped close to my bathroom, I suddenly realized that my foot was in an inch of lukewarm water.

I followed the water to the door, opened it, and found that there was standing water in perhaps 2/3 of the apartment. I looked around for a source and couldn't find one. We'd had water before, but never anything close to this amount. Also, previously the water had come through a hole in the ceiling, from my upstairs neighbor's place. He plugged the hole and got his windows resealed, and weathered last night's thunderstorm without a drop in his apartment.

I checked my email and found that there had been a water main break in the night. I drew back the blinds and confirmed this information, as what had previously been the corner of 7th and May was now a gigantic muddy hole in the ground, with leaky hoses pumping water out at great speed, and shifty union workers standing around pointing at things.

By about 8am, we got a knock on the door. It was someone from the maintenance staff asking if everything was alright. I stood aside, sloshing water with my feet as I did so, and his jaw dropped. Within a few minutes, Jen with the management company was here, saying that my place was the only one in the building with water in it.

Within 20 minutes men in uniforms were wheeling large black machines into my apartment, and began noisily sucking what turned out to be several hundred gallons of water from my floor. They found the source of the water relatively quickly, as it was still actively filling my apartment with water. The wall of the building had been permeated, and was introducing water at a rate of perhaps a gallon per minute.

The city called me, and said they would be sending an appraiser over to assess the damage and advise the bean-counters as to an appropriate renumeration. As it stands, the restoration guys have sucked up almost all the water, and are working to suck up all the incoming water as it enters. They tell me this will continue until the water main break outside is entirely quelled.

Most of the baseboards in the apartment are saturated, and will probably have to be replaced. The plaster walls are probably damaged badly too. Computers, stereos, Jeff's TV and other assorted electronic effects managed to avoid permanent damage, though some did get wet, and the full impact is as yet to be determined.

The more alarming piece of damage is the part of the wall that in the time it's taken to write this blog post has increased its inflow, the restoration guys are having trouble keeping up with it. Looking outside, the water in the giant hole in the ground appears to have risen in level, though it looks cleaner. Meanwhile, the waterworks guys appear to have gone to lunch or something.

I will update as is possible.

Nicole brooked no delay in saying:
Do you need help building your ark?

12:19 PM, Aug 10, 2009

Jeff cut in with:
I dub thee, "SS BAHUA"

2:02 PM, Aug 10, 2009

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