Gateway Politics

Friends and family.

It is about 2:00 a.m. Wed morning. I wanted to give you a quick update. I’m sorry we can’t talk more.

We now have water on 3 sides of our house and will be completely surrounded in the next few hours. For those of you who don’t know, our house is outside of the sand bag wall and at the mercy of the river. We are keeping the basement flooded to about 4 feet to keep the foundation from caving in and regulating the depth with a 2 inch pump - heavy duty, provided by the city. The river is now at 35 1/2 feet and will go to 38. That will put about 3 feet of water on our foundation, or about 1/2 way up the basement windows. Hopefully, as the pressure increases, the pump will be able to handle the volume. We can only go to about 5 feet in the basement before the water gets into our furnace, which is mounted on the basement ceiling - sort of hangs in the air instead of sitting on the floor like most. If they are right about their predictions we should have a couple of feet to spare before we worry about water getting into the first floor.

A little disaster in the shop today. The toilet ruptured and we have sewer water coming in. Luckily there is a 2 foot sump just behind where the bathroom is located and the sewer water is draining into that sump. We have an electric sump pump going and that is keeping things pretty dry for the time being. The concern is that as the river comes up another 2 1/2 feet, the pressure will increase and the pump may not keep up. There is talk of pulling the toilet, dealing with a temporary sewer water geyser and trying to cap it - something like capping an oil well. Can you imagine? Since it is my shop I guess I’ll have to be in there with them.

I’m going to stay in the house as long as I can to man the pump. We have no air conditioning or hot water but still have cold water, toilets, phones and electricity. Im not sure how long those will last.

It is amazing how quickly things change. Last night I was hopeful and today was not a good day. It is sort of like sticking your finger in a hole in the dam and watching many others pop open. Things can go south very quickly. We just seem to rush from one disaster to another. Early this morning a street behind the sand bag wall cracked and water starting coming up. They have sand bagged it but it is still flowing. The only thing keeping our shop dry is a set of pumps at the low spot in the street pumping water back over the 8 foot sand bag wall. We have a bout 6 inches to spare before it gets into the shop. We have our fingers crossed that the National Guard can keep the pumps going for the next week.

We have hundreds of volunteers in town as well as prisoners and the National Guard. The soldiers have made such a huge difference. They work in shifts and give us 24 - hour coverage so we can sleep a little each night. For those of you who have come to help and others who have offered encouragement and support we are truly thankful. You are making us feel much better.

Unfortunately, we have about 3 more days of this before the crest late Friday night or Saturday. Hopefully it will start going down within about 48 hours.

Off to catch a couple of hours of sleep. I’ll try to give you another report tomorrow night.

No one will be here to answer the phones unless I happen to be on a quick break.