At 2 a.m. this morning I was awakened by the tornado sirens across the road. I've always thought of them as more of a nuisance than a help because they usually just wake us up, get our hearts racing, only to find that we've got a severe weather warning. Really? Did I need a deafening siren to tell me that? Shouldn't the clapping thunder and blinding lightening tell me that?
So, this morning when Brian and I were woken up, we did our parental duty to protect our family and checked the news to see what was going on. After the third sounding of the alarm and the somewhat startling wind and rain, we decided it was best to wake the kids up and head to the basement.
After handing the last child off to Brian and beginning the decent myself, I heard Brian exclaim "Oh no! What is happening??". When I reached the bottom, I found out for myself...about 6 inches of water (at its deepest) was standing in our basement and there was a waterfall over by the sump pump. To make a long story short...the outtake pipe had come uncoupled and was simply pulling the water out of the sump pump and pouring it back into the basement.
So, how did man fail? Well, we thought we had "flood-proofed" our basement... our supposed "port in the storm". We had a drainage system installed in the walls. We installed the best sump pump money could buy AND we even had a back-up sump pump installed should the primary one fail. Indeed the drainage system was working great...no leaks in the walls. As I described, the primary sump pump WAS working but the pipes that supplied it failed! And, for reasons we have figured out yet, the back up sump pump either wasn't working or wasn't able to handle the massive influx of water.
How did God prevail?? If there hadn't been those persistent tornado sirens, we would have never gone to the basement and we would have lost more than about $20 worth of food and baby toys. If this hadn't happened when it did, it could've happened a few weeks in the future...when Brian is gone for 2 consecutive work trips OR when we'll be out of town for a week! And, of course, he protected our house from any serious weather/tornado. As we were all sitting there, we realized that no matter what happened to our "stuff" we were so thankful to all be safe and together and to have the comfort of God with us at all times.
Maybe I'm a little emotional because I haven't had much sleep. But I believe we all witnessed a small miracle this morning.
Until next blog,
Jen
2 comments:
I'm glad you all stayed safe and that the leak was found. God does indeed prevail!
I heard the sirens about 2am and just rolled over and went back to sleep. Does that say something bad about my parenting skills?
I HEARD the sirens, turned on the weather, and STILL decided NOT to wake my children up and cram into our guest bathroom... I guess the rest of us all have faulty parenting skills!!
Thankful to be a witness to your "mini-miracle"!
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