Hurricane Irene - The Story - And A Stupid Toilet!

Friday was calm and still. Saturday afternoon we went to Evan's birthday party. Eric put up the water slide and the kids played in the drizzle. When it started to really rain, the party moved inside. Everyone had a good time. The rain didn’t dampen Evan’s “birthday spirit". We left, went to dinner and then tucked in for the night not knowing what to expect.

Sunday morning we woke up about 6:00 or so. We still had power. It was raining, but nothing severe. We checked emails, the weather channel, the usual. Looked like the storm was downgraded, so we weren't too concerned. "We should make coffee," David said. "Yep," I replied.

Next thing you know, the power went out. No coffee. We watched a few West Wing's on the computer and when the battery finally died, we got up and moving. It wasn't really "storming". It was raining and there were spurts of wind, but nothing very dramatic. We stopped in the Dunkin' Donuts and got coffee and went to the bathroom. (We have well water, so when the electricity goes out, no running water.) Back home.

We went for a walk in the rain to get a few photos. (A tree was down on the end of the street and I wanted a photo to blog.)

We heard a chainsaw going, so we assumed a tree had fallen and walked down the street to find David's mechanic out in the yard. A tree had fallen onto his house. David helped him for a while in the morning.

We were prepared for a day of power outage. We had our fruit, bottled water, peanut butter, cards and Qwirkle. We pulled the table up to the big sliding-glass door and played game after game, taking advantage of the daytime light.

By the afternoon, we were staring to get a little stir crazy though. The storm had passed by 5:00, so we got out and went to see the damage. I took some photos and we went to town to see about getting something for dinner. We stopped at the grocery store and got some veggies. David was going to grill. We had a nice dinner. More cards. More games.

All along I was thinking the power would be fixed overnight. Surely they have crews working around the clock to get us up and running. But when we woke up this morning, no power. No power, but the water company was running a generator. And that is what caused the drama. But let me back up a minute.

You remember that I have a basement bathroom, right? Remember the orange down the toilet story? Well, Sunday morning David called to see how his folks were weathering the storm. I overheard David telling George that he wasn't going to use the toilet downstairs because he wasn't sure how it would work with a shortage of water. When David hung up the phone, I said "Good call. I would have used it. I thought we had three toilets and three "free" flushes saved up. I'm glad I heard you say that." So, the bathroom downstairs was never used.

Monday morning David came into the bedroom and said “Hey, I think the water company got a generator going and we have water pressure. We can take showers, but they will be VERY cold.” So, I went downstairs, flashlight in hand, to get ready. I rinsed a little in the sink. Too cold for a shower. I wasn't that desperate yet. I threw on a ball cap and a pair of wrinkled jeans so I could get to work…..get to my computer….emails and Facebook and photos and blogs and all the things I had been missing. I also went to the bathroom. Flushed. Starting looking for my toothbrush.

That’s when I heard it. The dreaded sound. Dripping water sound. I turned around to look and stepped in water. The toilet was full to the brim. I closed my eyes. WHY???? Maybe if I ignore it, it will go back to normal. The dripping sound continued. Mind you, I am in the basement. In the dark. Tired. Flashlight in hand. In a moment of insanity, I started to laugh. I laughed because I knew that if I started crying, I wasn't going to stop.....for a very long time.

As best I could, I inspected the toilet and noticed that the bowl was full, but not overflowing. The leak was coming from the plastic pipe that connected the toilet to the wall. I threw a towel under the leak and ran upstairs to get a bowl from the kitchen.

I grabbed two plastic bowls and felt water under my big toe. I looked down. The freezer was leaking .... the ice had melted. "DAVID!" I yelled. He came down. "Don't panic, but the freezer is leaking and so is the toilet downstairs," I almost giggled. I was losing it. I can't recount the conversation word for word - it's all a big blur - but David starting losing it too.

David starting cleaning up the freezer. I ran back down. The familiar sewer stench was starting. David ran down yelling something and opened the windows and threw me a few more towels. "Why are you laughing?" he snapped. "I don't know. It's done now. There's' nothing I can do about it. I DIDN'T KNOW!" He ran back up to deal with the fridge, get away from the stench, get away from me.

There I sat on the floor. Flashlight in one hand. A bowl would fill up from the leak. I would replace it with another bowl and pour the full one into the sink. I figured I was going to have to sit and wait for the entire toilet to empty through this leak. I was going to be here a while. And the toilet never seemed to go down...the water level looked the same. It was filling back up.

David came back down yelling at me to clean up every last drop. "If one thing has to be fixed, you are paying for it!" he scolded. I laughed again ... crazy, tired, nervous, laughter. I felt like a teenager in trouble ... "THIS IS COMING OUT OF YOUR ALLOWANCE YOUNG LADY!" Tears were so close behind the laughter, I had to keep moving. David stared at me for a minute. "You know when you put the water in the sink it goes right back into the toilet, right?" "NO!" "You know you can turn the water off?" "NO!!"

David shows me how to turn off the water, scolds me again before returning upstairs to finish kitchen cleanup. "Every last drop...." I hear him say on the way up. I've gone through every towel in my cabinet. The stench is growing. The laughter fades and the tears start to fall. There I sit on the floor in the dark of this stupid, smelly bathroom AGAIN! I took a few minutes to bawl.

The leak slowed and finally stopped. I ran bowl after bowl of water upstairs to put it in a "working sink". Poured bleach in the remaining water and carried two giant, heavy, smelly laundry baskets of towels up to put on the patio in the open air.

David and I, both half-crazed from a water-filled morning, headed off to our jobs where computers work, ipods charge and toilets flush without incident.

I should have known better, now knowing there is a pump down there. But I thought from the conversation I heard that water pressure was the issue, and if the water was working, so would the toilet. I didn't think the whole thing through I guess. I don't have a mind that knows how these things might work....and I certainly didn't figure that the sink and toilet shared water like they do. So, not too much drama from the actual storm...but plenty from power outage effects. Why I ended up with the high-maintenance bathroom is beyond me, but there it is. Hopefully I have LEARNED MY LESSON and will never be in that position again.

They are saying now that it may take a few days. Those with generators are okay, but the rest of us are toast. If you are curious to see the numbers, there is a website with the towns and the percentage that is without power. Click here. Hebron as of now is 100% out. It's warm out so heating isn't a big issue. We can grill to eat. We can read and we have ipods and ipads and computers that can be charged at work. We are fine. The water is really key...no laundry. No clean dishes. It makes personal hygiene more difficult. That is what is making it a difficult for us. But it is making us so appreciative of all the modern conveniences we take for granted on a daily basis. I can't imagine a real disaster like Hurricane Katrina or a devastating tornado. Yikes!

"We're dark across the whole map," said Theresa Gilbert of Connecticut Light & Power. Irene blacked out half of the utility's 1.2 million customers Sunday, making it the biggest outage in Connecticut history.

Connecticut - 586,000 customers without power. 23 towns are 100 percent without power. (And we are one of them!)

So that's the story for now from here. I'll keep you posted.