You see, It happened like this…
AT&T is putting fiber optic cable under our sidewalk (rumor has it that it’s for a 5 sided building not far from here but I can’t confirm that) and they just did some of the initial drilling before last weekend’s torriential rain (5 to 7 inches). Our neighbors came home to a geyser in their basement Friday night. Their storm drain was an anti-drain. Adam borrowed a downspout extender (there is a better name which escapes me know) from us to redirect the runoff from thier new bathroom addition.
The city showed up Saturday morning (as we were preparing for our train trip) but didn’t do anything because it was still raining and Adam and Susan were not at home — having run away from the flood. Our basement remained dry until the moment the city water and sewer guys showed up to make sure we were ok, when they noticed the drain under the back porch not draining and water seeping under the door and into the basement. But not too bad — and certainly not the 8 inches of water Adam reported next door.
We unclogged that drain and pointed out to Adam that he really should replace our downspout extension (which prevents that problem for us nicely). Then headed on our merry way to Cumberland.
Today (Monday) the city guys showed up again, dug up the sidewalk, damanged our sewer line, found Susan and Adam’s damaged line and found out that number 11 also had a flooded basement. They dug up their sidewalk and discoverd the AT&T crew had put their fiber optic sleve 14 inches too close to our sewer lines which had knocked them out of alignment, blocking them. The city called in a local plumbing company; they made repairs and the city pointed out to the AT&T contractor that the bill would come to them.
So we have a new extension to our sewer line, we know it runs straight from the downhill corner of the house to the sewer (if the city had known that before they started digging, our line would have been OK), Susan and Adam have had their basement gutted, their sewer line repaired and number 11 also had their line repaired.
All’s well that ends well (if your basement isn’t one of the flooded ones).
AT&T is putting fiber optic cable under our sidewalk (rumor has it that it’s for a 5 sided building not far from here but I can’t confirm that) and they just did some of the initial drilling before last weekend’s torriential rain (5 to 7 inches). Our neighbors came home to a geyser in their basement Friday night. Their storm drain was an anti-drain. Adam borrowed a downspout extender (there is a better name which escapes me know) from us to redirect the runoff from thier new bathroom addition.