The "Holding Back The Flood Waters" Story

 It was an ordinary day.  Watching TV with my wife when we heard it for the first time.  We looked at each other, then we heard it once again.  Then it hit us.  The noise was coming from under our feet.  What we were hearing was the intermittent thump of the two-inch diameter plastic pipe striking the floor joists.  The thump was created by the slapping of the pipe against the floor joists when water was forced through it due to rising water entering our basement from Hurricane Ida.  It was over 20 years ago that we moved into our home in Manheim Township.  At the time we had no idea that the former owner had taken the sump pump with him when he left the house abandoned after a separation from his wife.  A few years after moving in we had a bad storm and the basement partially flooded, causing damage to our son's possessions in his basement bedroom.  Soon after we installed a sump pump to help prevent the same accident in the future.  At the time we didn't realize that the water was coming from the rock quarry that sat under many of the homes in the area.  A few years later another storm caused problems once again and we installed two more sump pumps.  

The three sump pumps in our basement tub.

One was huge and had to be placed in a 30" circular plastic tub that was 18" deep.  It needed two-inch plastic pipe that was placed in the crawl space under our family room and had it exit through the concrete blocks onto our driveway.  Yesterday we got to see how well it actually worked.  All three pumps were working and when the large one was triggered, it emptied the huge tub of water in about 10 seconds.  Wasn't long before it refilled, even with the other two taking water at the same time.  Hurricane Ida produced the 5th largest amount of rainfall in Pennsylvania history.  We watched in amazement as the three pumps did exactly what we had hoped they would do.  After a few hours of constant rain with about a total of 8 inches falling in half a day, the noise began to slow down.

The largest of the pipes spewing water from the basement.

This morning when I arose I checked and found the pumps were still working, but they only emptied water every 15 minutes.  As I type this, the rain is no longer falling and the pumps are just about quiet.  I can't imagine what we would have done had we not had those three pumps in operation.  I placed a call to our plumber and thanked him for suggesting the pump that he did and for how well it was installed.  Saved a tremendous amount of work had our basement been flooded as it had twice before.   Today is a great summer day and we can enjoy it knowing that our basement will not fill with water during a heavy storm anymore.  Our two cats also appreciate that they don't have to wade through the water to get to the cat litter.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.