Not A Good Day

[JWT]

The city I live in outside Detroit got over 6.5" of rain in a few hours on Monday. The old sewers were not up to the task and this is the result.

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I did get the rifles out in time. All of my hunting clothes were ruined. I got the powder, dies, and most of my tools out. Not so lucky with the coin and stamp collections. The water heater and washing machines are working. I'm planning on cleaning out the dryer drum and trying it and the furnace tomorrow. I will also see how the freezer and refridgerator do. I think the dust collector and jointer are questionable. All the table saw jigs and blades are rusted as well as all of my Tormek jigs.

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The workbench is ash and purpleheart. I'm hoping it survives. There is a lot of time invested it it.

Worst of all I was supposed to be taking my 9yr old son on a guys vacation to the upper penninsula Tuesday morning. He is very disappointed but he says he understands.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Ramar]

My shop has been under salt water many times. My procedure with most electric motor tools is a fresh water hose wash off followed by sun drying and gallons of spray down with WD-40. Remove all silt and mud and 50-50% bleach-water, dash of dawn wash of floors. Hope you don't have septic tanks in the neighborhood like I do as they make for added dangers.

A 5 gallon bucket of 30 wt. oil to dip tools etc. then wrapped in newspaper for storage until more effort can be had for detail cleaning. keep the fans blowing and air circulating some mildews will sicken the young and the old.

In 1993 I had 4 foot of water in my shop (Hurricane Emily) and it was 30 days before I could get to my hand gun collection in a non watertight safe. I lost over $96,000.00 in uninsured equipment and vehicles. I saved my '32 Ford '56 Harley and still have them.

I've been under many times since then and try to keep most thing up above the 4 foot level. That's the price one pays for living in "Paradise"?

Good luck!
Ramar

[Down South]

I hate floods......

[GOPHER SLAYER]

Out here on the left coast we will probably be flooded in sand.

[SharpsShooter]

Your homeowners insurance will cover it??


SS

[huntnman]

Not necessarily so,only up to a set value,most policy's here in the midwest do not cover flood. That is why I have a rider policy for guns and jewelry. If you have more invested than the maximum allowed on you're policy, you are at risk.

[Down South]

Your homeowners insurance will cover it??


SS
Doubt it. You/I/Most people need flood insurance. You gotta have the right insurance for the problem. Thank the Lord I had just swapped over to Landlord's insurance from Home Owners just before the house I lived in for 30 yrs burned down last week after I had rented it out less than a month ago. Home Owners would not have covered the house with renters in it and me not living there.
Make sure you have the right insurance.

[CLAYPOOL]

I was on "Flood" duty 5 times for the State of Illinois and learned/watched many things. I did watch 3 houses get together and build a levy (sp) around their yards and houses. It wasn't a monster thing but they sure worked together manning the pumps and watching for leaks. I also saw where a Tug boat captain had put his house up on pilling's. Neat looking. Just thinking....!

[MaryB]

PB blaster can remove rust so you may be able to recover some of the jigs and tools. Give all electric motors at least a week to dry, if you can set them i the sun it will help. WD40 will also soak up water so spray inside the motors then let it all evaporate before use(it is flammable). Drop coins into acetone and let them soak, if any were in slabs from a grading company they may have a recovery service that is cheap. Stamps can be saved too, a soak in distilled water with several changes then dry between sheets acid free paper.

[nicholst55]

PB blaster can remove rust so you may be able to recover some of the jigs and tools.

Use Evapo-Rust for this application; trust me on that.

http://www.evapo-rust.com/buy/

[dakotashooter2]

The insurance will be a battle. Most homeowner policies won't cover it unless you have a "sewer backup" rider and flood insurance generally won't cover sewer backup unless your property was flooded too.

[Down South]

The insurance will be a battle. Most homeowner policies won't cover it unless you have a "sewer backup" rider and flood insurance generally won't cover sewer backup unless your property was flooded too.

looks like and sounds like the whole thing flooded. The sewer may have been involved but it appears to be due to flooding from excess run off/rain.

The city I live in outside Detroit got over 6.5" of rain in a few hours on Monday. The old sewers were not up to the task and this is the result.
The old sewers are probably street drains. It's a flood insurance claim. I doubt Home Owners will cover it. If it does, He will be lucky.

[JWT]

There were so many houses and businesses involved the cleaning services don't even answer phones. Most of the GM tech center has been closed all week. I have spent the last week hauling trash out and sterilizing everything.

In my case the sewers are a combined sanitary and storm. The amount of rain we had forced all of this mixture into the basement.

So far I have the washing machine, refrigerator, water heater, dust collector, and furnace working. The dryer turns but no fire. I think the solenoids are shot. The freezer and jointer are still on the to do list.

The guns, dies, molds, and reloading tools are all safe. I do have a torque wrench, hand drills, drill bits, etc to assess. I haven't gone through all of the Tormek, tablesaw, and router jigs, bits and blades that were submerged. Maybe tomorrow... I did loose a lot of oak, ash, and purpleheart that was in the midst of furniture projects. Loosing all of my old high school/college stuff and about 200 books hurts though.

I have sewer backup insurance that will cover about 10K. With me doing the cleanup, I should come out OK.

Thanks for the advice guys.

[WILCO]

I have sewer backup insurance that will cover about 10K. With me doing the cleanup, I should come out OK.



That's great news! Give some thought to a sump pump for the next round of flash flooding. Every little bit helps.

[JWT]

Sump is piped to the sewer. I think it would have burned out from the back pressure if I hadn't turned off the power. The outlet ended up under water.

I had a 3' stand pipe in the floor drain and the sewage/water was coming out of it like a fountain.

I'm going to look into a sump bypass to outside. I will also get a price to have the floor removed and a backflow preventer installed.

Has anyone had to replace a Cannon safe interior? For now I'm going to apply bleach and then a fungicide. I would really prefer to replace the floor, sides and back.