indoor rain

i'm terribly behind on blogging, but here are the reasons: r's apartment flooded 2 weekends ago, and i'm moving there this sunday. yeah, i'm actually moving to a fema-like apartment. it's actually not that bad. at least the dry walls are not molding...yet.

r lives on the 1st floor of his apartment building. the unit on the 3rd floor, directly above his, encountered a water pipe busting. it was the sprinkler pipe, to be exact. it's a really old building, a converted knitting factory, and my guess is that the sprinkler system is the same one that was put in place when buildings were finally required to install certain safety features.

water just poured, POURED, from the pipe, raining through the floors, through r's and eventually to the basement unit where it all collected. we were sleeping in and woke up to what we thought was a rain storm. but then, we were puzzled that the rain sounded like it was coming from the wall behind us, where the bathroom was. so r, being the man, got out of bed and climbed down the loft to investigate. i followed him. when he swung open the bathroom door, we saw rain. it literally was raining IN the bathroom. and then the rain moved to the kitchen, then to the hallway just outside his unit. it was rain beyond pots, pans, or buckets.

the fire department showed up and somehow found a way to stop the water. when r went up stairs to check out the 3rd floor, the girl who lives there was in tears. you are totally helpless when water is just pouring from a pipe or the ceiling. the guy on the 2nd floor was out of town. being the holiday weekend, the super was away, and no one could even go into his apartment to try to help him save his belongings.

luckily, we were able to move things out of the way, mostly furniture, to avoid any damages. the management company has started the process of getting the insurance company doing their thing so construction to repair the building can start soon.

i'm still moving all my stuff there on sunday. lightning doesn't hit the same spot twice, right?