Saturday, May 21, 2011

stairwell waterfalls

No earthquakes yet and I haven't noticed anybody disappearing into the air yet today, so let me tell you a disaster story of my own from this past Thursday morning.

I was walking out the door to go to work, and I heard the sound of loud rushing water.  Our condo unit is right across from a stairwell, and water was rushing down the stairwell like a waterfall.  Water was seeping under the stairwell door and was heading across carpet toward our doors on both the 2nd and 3rd floor (We have a two-story unit in a 22-floor building).  There was no way to stop the water, it was moving so fast.  I decided to get down to the office in the lobby to make sure they knew what was going on, but when the elevator opened, water was pouring down in it also.  I ran down the other stairwell instead, and by the time I got to the lobby, water was creeping across the lobby floor.  Maintenance people were going crazy, all in a panic.

What had happened is that a sprinkler-system water main on the 16th floor had ruptured, releasing tons of water, causing plenty of damage on all floors below.  Two of the three building elevators are down indefinitely (Which means it's a good time to live on the 2nd floor and not the 22nd).  Water did seep a little under our 3rd floor door, and right now we have heavy-duty industrial fans very loudly drying our the carpet 24 hours  a day until the clean-up guys can lift the carpet and make sure all has been dried out and there is no chance of mold.

It's always something....

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