Our gas water heater suddenly began overflowing tonight, perhaps half
an hour or so ago. I turned off the gas burner and shut off the water
supply. Id' say we have a couple of gallons of water on the floor.

The heater is overflowing from the top. That is, the water is coming
out from under the cover which is held on by several screws. There is
no water on top of the heater.

The heater was installed in 1997 by the previous owner of our house
and we've never had any problem with it before.

I don't know anything about water heaters so I haven't the slightest
idea of what happened.

Any comments, suggestions, etc. will be greatly appreciated. I'll call
a repair company tomorrow, but in the meantime I'll be checking back
here later tonight.

Thanks,

-Len