On 7/25/2011 4:06 PM, Vic Smith wrote:
On Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:43:24 -0400, Art
wrote:



Is this the Vic Smith that used to work for Lucent/Bell Labs/Western
Electric/old AT&T?

No, but my brother Dan was at Lucent for a few years.
Obviously a different Vic Smith. Didn't know Dan either.

I know about those gully washers in the area. When
I lived in Bolingbrook we had 23" of rain in 36 hours, in, I think it
was 1985 or there about. And that was actually measured by a nearby
friend. Much of it came at the end of the period in the wee hours of
the morning. Funny thing was, the north side and the city had very
little rain, comparatively.

This one was nearly all north of the Ike. An endless line of heavy
stuff from the west just kept dumping water from the north side of
Chicago to about Evanston. I'm in Morton Grove.

I keep in touch with a friend that lives in Morton Grove. He lost power
for something like 36-40 hours on the previous storm. This time it was
only out for about 2 hours. My son lives in Berwyn and he got a little
water in the entrance way to his 2 1/2 foot deep basement. But he did
have a little utility pump which kept it out of the kitchen, which is
also in the basement.

My pump barely kept up, but it did. The
big problem by me was sewer backup. I had the floor drain plugged and a
check valve on the basement sink drain. As the backup comes on slowly,
the check valve really didn't work, so the sink filled almost to the
top. Once I siphoned the water out of the sink, into the sump pit,
there was enough pressure difference to keep the check valve's gate
tightly shut ... end of problem. After complaining the Village
official, they had a whole house anti-backup system installed not at my
expense.

The bright spot for me is the previous owners had the lift system put
in in 1961 after they got crap in the basement during a heavy rain, so
I don't get sewer water in, just ground water.
I never liked it before because it uses electricity to pump out all
house water. But after being flooded twice, maybe that check valve is
good.

--Vic
The great thing about living in the mountains of western NC is that I
have no sump pump. If water should get in the basement, I just open the
door and it will go downhill ... very different from IL.