Sandra Orr

When the streets are pools of muddy water and fields are lakes with fences around them, you know there's been a lot of rain. When you see people canoeing in their backyards, you know there's been a lot of rain. We had an unusually high amount of rain in a short period of time in a part of town near a river front.

The heavy downpour lasting days hit us over a holiday weekend when we least expected it. Hearing a dripping sound, my spouse and I rushed down to the basement and there were six inches of water on the floor. The carpet was sopping wet and squished under our feet. We tried the wet vacuum but we could see the cleanup and removing the wetness was beyond us.

The first thing we did was install a new sump and get the pump going again. A cleaning crew got started as soon as possible, but with so many beleaguered customers waiting they would do some work and then come back later.

The furniture, sofas, chairs and tables were piled in the middle of the rooms. The wet carpet was cut into sections, pushed through an open window with the screen removed and piled at the curb. A commercial vacuum with a large hose shot excess water out of the window. The hose gushed overnight and then several large fans were placed about and turned on high to dry the bare cement floor. The drying up took about three days.

Wet and ruined items were recorded and set out for removal. Many boxed items in a storage space under the stairs were completely soaked.

Unusable furniture included a bed and mattress and an entertainment stand of pressboard and oak veneer that splayed at the bottom for about eighteen inches. Completely wet boxes of books, papers and magazines were discarded. We didn't try to dry and save anything paper that would have meant wet papers lying over the furniture piles. Anything paper, cardboard or pressboard wicks up and is ruined by wetness. Anything in a metal case or desk or filing cabinet is fine. Anything in a plastic container or a plastic bag is fine but that wasn't my Shakespeare plays or novels or other literature studied in English.

For four months, we had a cleaning company underfoot, coming and going, and someone had to be there to keep the appointments, usually me. What they had to do was remove the drywall in three rooms, a utility room and a washroom. Then they had to replace the drywall, tape and paint the walls, doors and trim. New carpet, new wood edging and baseboard were going to be installed. I had to pick the carpet out and I had to pick out the colors to paint. Never in my life have I ever done everything all at once. The color I picked was sea green, or a light aqua, for carpet and walls everywhere.

Meanwhile, I had moved my work station upstairs to the dining room, thrown out the box of soggy printer paper and bought a new one. Typing seemed to be the thing to do when everything was piled high. The printer would be going and the phone would be ringing all day. The work crew was very polite even though my effort was very visible and audible while they were coming and going.

Then once the cleaning crew finished, the sofas shampooed and furnace, washer and dryer checked, we started on the upstairs. The fact that we wanted to renovate the upstairs and leave the downstairs alone before the flood was beside the point. The color picked for the upstairs was also sea green. I reasoned that the color was peaceful and picked up the color in the furniture and lamps. The color reflected the opposite of how I felt, which was disorganized, upset and helpless in the ruin.

The nice part was to be all organized again and to have the flood behind us rather than in front of us. A flood without a doubt is one of the most upsetting problems I have ever encountered.

Sandra Orr is a freelance writer and real estate broker, and is the author of "Huron: Grand Bend to South Hampton" and "The Perpetrators". A graduate of the University of Western Ontario, Ms. Orr resides in Canada.