On Wed, 25 Jan 2017 07:16:17 -0800 (PST), wrote:


buy a spare pump and keep it on the shelf, run it once a month as well

I had thought of that, and for a reason. I was once in a situation,
where there was flooding due to an extreme amount of rain. Due to
location, my home was ok, but I was in charge of maintenance at a
commercial building. I decided to go check that building. What was
normally a 10 min. drive, took an hour because of flooded roads. The
storm sewers were all backing up. When I got to that building, the
basement was starting to flood. Threre was a sump pump, but it could not
keep up with the amount of water. I got back in my truck to go to a
hardware store and buy another pump, or even two of them. It took over
an hour to get there, and when I did, they were sold out of all pumps,
and all sump pump hoses, and anything else that would be used to pump
water.

Needless to say, that building had severe flooding before the storm
ended. I was unable to even get back there, because of bridges being
washed out, and other flooding. I did manage to get home, but it was not
till the following day that I got back to that building. By then it was
too late. The water was slowly going down, but it had gotten to about 5
feet deep in that basement. There were finished rooms down there, all
were destroyed, as well as the furnace, water heaters and a lot more.

Actually, I doubt any pumps could have helped, since that part of the
city was all damaged, as all the sewers backed up, but at least I could
have possibly kept the water level lower if I had pumps on hand.

Buy a spare NOW, before you really need it, and the stores are sold out.