FIre next time?

I know all about water damage.

Twenty years ago this past February, a pipe froze and burst on the top floor of my condo building, and since water goes where water wants to go, a lot of it came cascading down into our home on the first floor. We took a real hit, and almost lost our plaster medallion LR ceiling, a hundred-year-old decorative feature that would have cost beaucoup to replace. With 17 basketball-sized holes cut in it, with four blowers blowing away - and the heat jacked up for a few weeks - we were able to save the ceiling. But we were out of our home for over a month, and had to have extensive repairwork done (first and foremost, the ceiling, but also floors refinished, woodwork - of which we have a lot in our LR - cleaned, drywall replaced, walls repainted...). Oddly, other than a framed poster over the fireplace and a few pictures, we didn't lose any furniture or other items. Trying to keep our TV - at that point one of those heavy old big box numbers - we dropped it, causing no damage to the TV, which we were about to replace anyway, but creating a dent in the floor. (Fortunately, between the building insurance and our homeowners, pretty much everything - including our hotel stays - was covered.)

Water damage, even on the small scale we experienced it, is awful, and every time I see a story about people being flooded out by raging rivers or hurricane surges, and see them in the ruins of their homes, my heart goes out to them.

The Great 71 Beacon Flood of Ought Five has created heightened sensitivities with respect to water damage, so it was no surprise when, a couple of months back, an article on the Johnstown (PA) Flood Museum caught my eye. This museum commemorates the 1889 Johnstown Flood, one of the worst flooding disasters in American history, second only in terms of loss of life to the Galveston Flood of 1900. Over two-thousand folks died in the Johnstown Flood; 99 families were entirely wiped out. 

The Johnstown Flood Museum's flooding wasn't caused by a raging river or monsoon-like storm. As with the flooding in my building, there was a burst pipe that sent water gurgling through the building, damaging walls, ceiling tiles, and carpets.

Fortunately for its patrons, the Johnstown Flood Museum said on its social media accounts that “nothing of historic significance was affected” by the interior inundation. (Source: The Guardian)

It could have been worse if not for the head's up alert sounded by:

... a volunteer docent at the museum, Nikki Bosley, who was working in the archives when she discovered the leak.

Museum officials informed the local news outlet WJAC that Bosley “sounded the alarm and allowed us to get in here and keep it from being much, much worse”. 

Unfortunately, the Museum had to do a lot of mopping up, and as of late February, it remained closed 

Anyway, while I know all about water damage, I don't have a lot of up close and personal experience with actual flooding, beyond the occasional minor bouts with water seeping into our common areas in the building's basement during really wild rainstorms. (We installed a sump pump a while back, and haven't had any water in the building since.)

But the article on the Johnstown Flood Museum got me to look up the Johnstown Flood. And got me to remember the one and only flood I actually lived through. 

I have very vivid memories of it, but I had to look up the date. And I found that, in late August 1955, in the aftermath of Hurricanes Connie and Diane, there was a flood in Worcester. (This was a couple of weeks before I started first grade, so I was five years old, pushing six.)

We still lived in my grandmother's three decker then, which was the first house on Winchester Ave, separated from Main Street by an empty lot (which in the next year or so became a Sunoco station). Worcester is very hilly, and we lived on a hill, and standing on our piazza (Worcester for porch), I remember watching water wildly coursing down the hill, heading toward Webster Square, which was where "our" hill leveled out. 

The picture here shows Breen's Cafe in Webster Square, which is pretty much exactly a mile from our piazza on Winchester Ave, and which is located just around the corner from where my grandfather's bar (Rogers Brothers' Saloon) stood. (Alas, the family saloon was a victim of Prohibition.) 

Breen's, by the way, is still in operation, and for many years now has been owned by two of the Hanlon brothers, fellows who grew up in the 'hood and were grammar and high school classmates of my brothers. One of the brothers, who was a good friend of my brother Rich, died very young. Just googled and Brian's been gone since 2002. 

Note to self: next year, when my sister Trish and I make our annual cemetery run to Worcester, we should have lunch at Breen's.

My other memory of the the flood of 1955 was that for day or so, while there was water, water, everywhere, our water was shut off. I remember taking a crap in a coffee can, and my father taking the can out to toss in the field behind our house. There were two paint stirrers in the can, I guess so my father could lift the turds out. Or something. Or maybe we got to use the toilet, but he had to remove the turds using the paint stirrers to retrieve them so he could ferry them out to dispose of. My memory is very clear of the coffee can, my poop, and the paint stirrers.

Blessedly, although we're all at present pretty much living through an unnatural disaster, I've never lived through a natural disaster, and have no desire to ever experience one. 

But all this brings to mind the words from a Black spiritual, “God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!” 

Watching the recent LA devastation, I don't have any desire to experience a fire, either.

Here's hoping I stay lucky.