Can't live with it. Can't live without it. Rain! What is more relaxing than watching a gentle summer rain come down as you sit on your porch? But when it comes down day after day by the bucketsful, it can become downright alarming. The rain recently battering the East Coast or the rains here in the last month stretch one's patience and pocketbook.
As I drove through central Iroquois County two weeks ago, I was shocked at the number of acres lying black and muddy with no crop even visible. Golf courses have had limited play. Baseball games have been canceled by the dozens. But that is not all. The Kankakee River was closed to boating. The fishing derby had fewer entries. The bridge replacement project over the river for Interstate 57 has ground to a halt. Some have said that the steel wasn't ordered in time, but it would appear to me there is no way the work on the new concrete piers can take place in water this high.
In the late 1940s, I lived right next to where those bridges are now being dismantled. There were no bridges there, or even a highway. Water was a concern even then, as heavy silting from Indiana shallowed our natural treasure. The river would come up into our backyard, but it never reached the house. Not all were that fortunate. While fire is probably the most terrifying disaster for one's home, followed by a tornado, rising water can cause just as much panic. It just comes creeping up more slowly. For those who live near a flowing estuary, be it a river or a creek, there always is concern.
As I traveled down the Illinois River in 1995 on a boat built by the late Quen Cultra, of Onarga, we stopped once for lunch at a restaurant near the river on what appeared to be reasonably high stilts. When we were inside, I saw lines drawn on the wall with years penciled on the individual lines. I asked what that meant and was told that these were the high water marks for the various years.
One year it was six feet above the floor of the restaurant. There were probably 15 or so lines, which meant that this restaurant had been totally flooded that many times since they started keeping records. It appeared that at least every three or four years, the place was ruined in the spring floods. Strange why one would keep coming back to run a restaurant, but they did.
I am sure everyone has a story of flooding or a special event canceled by rain. Some have experienced a hurricane; a few even a typhoon. But for most of us the biggest event is a flooded basement or a leaking window sill. I have such a story.
In 1977, we completed a house near Langham Creek that runs between Clifton and Chebanse. The house was well above the creek bank, and we felt we had the best of both worlds; no flooding but a beautiful idyllic view in our backyard. Then one early spring a few years later ice and snow melted, the rain came down, and the creek rose dramatically. As I woke that morning in mid-March, I could see that the creek was abnormally high, but well below the top of the creek bank. Our building location appeared acceptable.
I went toward the basement to assure myself that the sump pump was working. As I descended the stairs, I saw at least two feet of water over the entire basement. While it was unfinished, the children had toys floating, my power tools sat deep in the water — and it was freezing cold. I called my builder, who also was a friend, and asked what might have happened. He was there in 20 minutes.
"I don't know why, but the outlet through the wall to drain the weep tiles into the sump pit is letting water stream back in. We need to block the hole and then start to pump," he exclaimed. He had such a plug, but the inlet we needed to block was a good three feet below the surface of the water in the sump hole, and the water was barely above freezing. I couldn't stand the cold water long enough to insert the plug. So up to the attic I went, got into my scuba diving suit, complete with gloves, and down to the basement. I easily inserted the plug and turned it tightly into place.
My neighbor had a friend in Bonfield with a gas-driven pump the size of a car engine. He called and Dale Boness soon arrived. His pump discharged water like a firefighter's hose, along with tinker toys, match-box cars and other floating objects. The water eventually was gone and fortunately the basement dried without mold. I later discovered that the tile going to the creek from the weep tiles around the basement walls had no check-valve. When the height of the creek was higher than the basement floor, it worked in reverse. Water does seek its own level.
By summer, I had dug up the pipe and installed a check-valve and the problem was permanently corrected. I never figured out who goofed on the check-value, but I guess not too many scuba divers can say they dove in their own basement. I also figured out that I have outlasted those concrete bridges over the Kankakee River.