Flooded here

 
 After Hurricane Irene I thought we had seen the worst of things. I only had a small amount of water in the house from that storm and no real damage even though we had horizontal rain. The main problem in my house then was the rain had somehow gotten into my dormers and we had a few small leaks. Interestingly, the the most recent rain which was just as heavy or heavier than the one from Irene only minus the powerful wind and had no leaks showing at all,so the wind was a big factor there.
 
 Last night I was on the first floor above the basement after having recently checked down there for water. When I had been down it was dry and this was during one of the largest deluges I have ever witnessed in my area. I was feeling pretty good about the situation when I heard a water gushing sound and it sounded a lot like what I usually hear during a rain only much louder....then I heard my sump pump turn on. I'm thinking, Uh Oh this isn't good. This was around 10:30 pm last night.
 
 I went to the basement and was greeted by water on the floor and when I turned the corner of the left basement I seen what had happened.
 
 One of my basement windows had a crack in it which I was aware of. In that window water had filled the entire window well and the pressure of the water had finished busting the glass out of the window. Gallons and gallons of water were coming into the basement.
 
 Frantically I went out back where the window was and started to dig a dam to divert the water around the window. I was successful in that and probably saved a few thousand gallons of water coming in my house. The trench I dug diverted the water aroiund the back corner of the house and down the hill.
 
 We have had small leaks from that same window in the past and a previous owner had even tried to seal it with expansion foam. I had never had anything that extreme from there before.
 
 So I swept what water I could into my sump hole and it was pumped out of the basement all except around the perimeter where my wife has tons of boxes of her stuff stored. Some of her things were damaged but we never had over a few inches in the basement.
 
 Today I decided to do something radical.I knocked out the window and the masonry holding it. Then I pumped out the water that was left in the window well with a spare pump I had. I completely filled in the hole with cement blocks and high strength mortar. Then I  sealed both sides of the repair with the very best leak repair cement I could get my hands on. The first time I mixed a batch up it set too fast as it sets in 90 seconds. The next batches were made smaller and faster.
 
 Then I went out back,dug around the window well and removed the well itself. Next I filled in the hole where the old window used to be and graded it.....I can't tell you how much better I feel about the whole thing now. We had planned to put a new patio out back anyways in the near future and this would have been an obstacle to that so I am relieved on a lot of fronts.
 
  I think I stopped the water problem but everything on my body hurts....even my toe nails. I need to go to work tomorrow to take a break.

 Thanks jhughes. I watched our local news here and a lot of people had it much worse than I did. I am pretty thankful that it wasn't worse. I am living on a hill away from large bodies of water and that definitely worked for me. Others who live by creeks and rivers are now living in shelters.

 Thanks Beag.... the outcome wasn't bad really. It made me make a needed repair that had gone unnoticed till now. It all better now but I do feel for those who lost houses. One man was killed when he was down in his basement near a hole in his wall that was spouting out water. The entire basement wall collapsed on him.

 When I drove home the other day I thought I might not make it home as there were half a dozen overflowing creeks and the water was so high it was coming into my doors. My van never stalled out thank God.

Wow--that sounds tough.  Sounds like you knew how to take care of it.  So glad it didn't get worse.  

I've had a few days where even my toenails hurt...youch.  

Man that's a bad bead.

Hope everyone is well.

I'm glad it wasn't too serious. Good luck, Jan

It looks like some area here in the Northeast actually got more rain from this storm than Irene. There's some roads in the area here in NJ that are actually flooded worse than they were before. Route 29 which goes right up along the Delaware from Trenton north past Riegelsville area is actually severed in spots because of the flooding.

The people in Texas would love to have some of this rain.

You guys in the eastern US be safe out there...

You guys in Texas and region be careful as well...man, this is not good.