Weather Woes

Well it has been a very interesting time here in the Pittsburgh area. Last night Mother Nature decided to take us for a ride. Starting around 7:00 P. M. the weather reports had us under a tornado watch, then around 8:00 they changed that to a tornado warning. Tornado's are not something that happens in these parts very often so it really got our attention. The storm came and though we did not get a tornado, we did have torrential rain and hail. Just before nine Kenny looked out and said that the lower part of our back yard was under water. I told him he should check the basement. When he did there was water coming in and he started to mop it up and called up for me to help. When I went down I saw that there was water coming up from the drain. That was the beginning of a very long night. It wasn’t long and the entire floor was covered with water. Kenny sent me up to see if I could find a ball that would fit in the drain hole to try to hold the water back some. I found a large tennis ball of Gage’s that worked and we held it down with a plunger. The water was also pouring in through the crawl space wall. Kenny had me come down and hold the ball down while he went to see what he could do to maybe make the water go a different way. I stayed down there for four hours as the water rose first around my shoes and then over my ankles and then up my calf. We were most worried about our new furnace as the water rose. Kenny started filling large buckets of water and carrying up and out of the house to try to save the furnace. I was afraid he was going to have a heart attack or something. He did call Justin to ask if he knew anyone that had a pump. Justin was already in bed asleep. Kenny kept carrying water. It wasn’t too long and I started hearing voices upstairs but didn’t know who. My friend Patty had called down to see how the dogs were handling the storm and when she couldn’t get me on the home phone or my cell she knew something must be wrong. She and her husband headed down to see what they could do. It wasn’t long until the neighbors from next door showed up too. Then Justin came. He said when no one answered the phone he headed over. That gave us six people to help with a bucket brigade to carry water out. We were able to just keep ahead to keep the water from going into our new furnace. Around 11:30 Justin thought about some pumps they had where he works so decided to try to get there to get one. That became a huge challenge because so many roads were closed but he eventually got there. It all took him about an hour and a half to get back here with the pump and in the mean time everyone except me was bailing water. I was still holding the water back as best I could. Once they got the pump hooked up and draining into the yard it was after 1 A.M. Our help all headed home then to get some sleep. I showered and headed to bed for awhile and Justin sat with his Dad for most of the night. I got up at 5:30 so Kenny could go to bed for awhile. We didn’t want to let the pump run dry. There was still several inches of water down there when I got up. It was not fun but I realize how much worse it could have been. So many people lost so much, houses, cars and other things. I am so grateful for good friends who came to our aid on their own. Today brought clean up. What an amazing amount of work that was but the basement is clean and the trucks loaded with things to go to the dump tomorrow. Now I just hope that we don't get another storm like that for a very long time. I haven't talked to any others in the family today but hope everyone weathered the storms OK. LaDonna
This was taken from our front yard this afternoon.