Over the weekend I went home to help my mother out with repairing her home, damaged in the flood of almost three weeks ago. I talked about that here.

The first three hours of the drive were lovely, with the trees in the higher elevations putting on their beautiful fall colors. It was a sunny morning, the perfect light to enjoy the seasonal beauty. And on the interstate, there are no leaf peepers to contend with. The colors will peak in a few more weeks, but it was delightful enough right now.

The last section of the drive was less fun. The highway follows the river, and flood damage was frequently visible. The road itself had been underwater in several sections. One stretch narrowed to one lane in each direction, because the road edges had been undercut, and a bridge had visible damage to the piers that hadn't been there last time I drove I-86.

Driving through Owego to my mother's house, the air was dusty from the cars kicking up flood mud from the road. There were plenty of visible puddles. Outside every house, on the curb, was a giant pile of debris. Pick-ups are underway, but they aren't keeping up with the damage.

I couldn't park in my mother's driveway, because there was an unfamiliar pickup truck in her driveway. I found out that a horde of workers from a nearby factory (Dresser-Rand, I think?) were volunteering to help people out on that weekend, and one of them was suctioning up mud from Mom's basement. He was a nice guy, although we decided not to shake hands because of all the mud. Which was silly, since we both had muddy gloves.

Anyway, my mother's house had flooded up to about five feet on the first floor. According to the survey, she was going to have to remove the brand-new floors in the kitchen, dining room, and front hall. She's especially annoyed about the front hall, because there's some nice ceramic tiles there. I guess the wooded underfloor had swelled from the water and messed up the tile attachments? I wasn't quite clear on the details. I wonder if they can be pried off and re-glued down, as I didn't notice any that were actually broken.

The first day I moved stuff around, including things like getting an old dorm-style refrigerator down from the attic, for use while the downstairs is being renovated. Not only did Mom lose all the new appliances, the water got high enough to destroy the new lower and upper cabinets. We cleaned the mud off the basement window screens and put them back in, so as to reduce the number of insects arriving. Luckily, the flood waters are draining faster than last time, so the mosquitoes were an annoyance, not a nightmare.

The Red Cross is still driving around the affected neighborhoods, delivering hot food twice a day. It wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible either, from the four samples I had. In order, I ate hot dogs, chicken breasts, dirty rice, and chicken nuggets.

The original plan was for me to stay at her place overnight, but I decided I wanted a hot shower in the morning too badly, so I drove to my Dad's house for the night. He was out at a concert featuring Count Basie's Orchestra, which was a bit of a surprise, since Count Basie died in 1984. If he's doing a concert tour, then one of three things must be true: (1) it's really creepy the way they keep him around like Lenin; (2) the zombie apocalypse is underway, so I'd better rush off and loot the sporting-goods store and then a grocery store; (3) I'd better re-evaluate my religious beliefs.

But my father cleared it up by pointing out that it was, in fact, Count Basie's Orchestra, and that the Count himself was no longer involved. In fact, only three or four of the members had been hired by Basie himself. I was told the concert was quite good.

The second day, back at my mother's somewhat later than planned due to staying up late studying and lingering over breakfast, I applied myself to a shop-vac. We were getting power via an extension cord from the neighbor's. My mother had already torn down all the wet wallboard, so I was sucking up plaster dust and mud, both of which were holding lots of water up against the house's balloon framing. It was clearly drying out much better in the non-gunky spots. I also helped her tear down some of the old plaster-and-lathe walls around the downstairs bathroom. They had been just covered with modern wallboard, but the lathe was soaking wet, and again the plan was to get as much portable wet stuff out of the house, to encourage the non-portable wet stuff (i.e. structural elements) to dry more rapidly.

While I was there a Verizon repairman showed up and got telephone service reestablished. He presumably didn't have to repair anything past the terminal block where the outside lines come in, but he tested the house lines and discovered one of the house's wires had gone bad. He suspected it had some split insulation from years back, and the flood had corroded it somewhere, So he replaced that wire, gratis. A nice guy.

Soon enough, though, the sun was setting and I had to get back on my way. I had plenty of academic work to do over the weekend, and I'd done none of it. I got back to my apartment at about 10:30 PM, and commenced a study session that lasted until the faintest streaks of light were brightening the horizon. Caffeine is pretty much my favorite substance, these days.

The day after I left, I got word that the electrician had replaced Mom's master circuit breaker, and she had power again. The next day a hot-water heater was installed. So at least the house is now safe and comfortable, although there's a bit of a hurry to get a new furnace installed, and the walls up and insulated, before the weather gets any colder.

Posted by: Boviate at 07:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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