A waterfall into our basement....

Last night we had a waterfall down the stairs into our basement.....

I am not joking.  I am deadly serious.

The storms were so bad and the rain so bad, that our sump pump could not keep up....

The water was pouring down the stairs of our walkout basement.  The water was climbing up the sliding doors and leaking into the basement like a sieve.  The sump pump was overflowing at the other end of the basement and the water was rising at an alarming rate.....

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law had decided to drop by for a visit....and walked into mad chaos...my toddler thought the whole thing was great as he ran around in his rubber boots.....

Thankfully they arrived, as my sister-in-law took my son, and my husband, and myself and my brother-in-law went out side and had to dig a trench to guide the water away from the house.....in the pouring rain, lightening and thunder....it was like something out of a horror movie - as we were swinging shovels and pick-axes in the lighting and it lit us all up like daylight every now and then....

We were terrified we were going to get struck by lighting......

We had to dig a trench and then build a dam....

And the rain still came, like a torrent on our heads......

Mother nature sure was mad at someone.....

When the water had reached about 3 feet up the sliding doors we managed to get the waterfall slowed to a slow stream....

The water in our basement was up to the stairs coming into the house....nearly over the bottom stair....our stuff was starting to float....

Not good.

We were soaked, covered in mud and exhausted.

But we seemed to win.

And the sump pump began to catch up.

We babysat our sump pump until about midnight.  The water slowly started to go down.

So this morning we are met with the mess and the smell.  The awful wet smell of the basement....ugh.

The mess of our trench digging outside.

The mess of the wet and soggy stuff in the basement.....

I am going to need more coffee........