þegar ég kom heim var allt í rugli...
I came home today from a trip to the country to find a giant pump truck parked in the entrance to the apartment garage, pumping water with the high-pitched whine of an accident scene. Apparently while I was away the big storm-water pumping station down the road had a computer malfunction and, well, the storm runoff flooded our parking garage with around 2,000 tons of water. They were towing the last of the cars onto a ramp truck as we got there, so I was damn fortunate to have my car out and running. But what still worried me was the hallway of storage rooms that lies another full story below the parking garage.
The power was out and the elevator out of order as I walked down the steps to find my neighbors sloshing around in their storage rooms and a crew of blue-shirted Polish immigrants manning a tangled jumble of industrial vacuums. I couldn't open the door of my storage room because everything had shifted around in there. Apparently that hallway had been filled with over 6 feet of water, but the storage room doors' water-tight design ensured that "only" about 2 feet flooded each of the rooms.
But that was enough water to cost me a few dear possessions. The Bose speakers signed by the Doctor himself: sopping like a sponge. The Boston Globe collection from the Sox' 2004 Yankee-series surprise and World Series sweep, soaked through to the Jordan's Furniture ads. The framed poster from Sigur Rós' 2002 útgáfutónleikar had a whole new watermark of stormy Icelandic authenticity. And a whole pile of family pictures and artwork í rugli...
But there was some good to come out of it. I got to throw away a lot of wet stuff. I had fun joshing with the Polish kid who was manning the wet-vac (and my friend visiting from the Czech Republic got to do a little Slavic verbal sparring of her own) and then we made the national news, first-up on the fréttir at 19:00 (as well as first up on the radio news). And we got a nice Morgunblaðið article too. Now, Dr. Spock, how about recording Skitapakk II in commemoration of the great Sólvallagötu flood of '07...?
The power was out and the elevator out of order as I walked down the steps to find my neighbors sloshing around in their storage rooms and a crew of blue-shirted Polish immigrants manning a tangled jumble of industrial vacuums. I couldn't open the door of my storage room because everything had shifted around in there. Apparently that hallway had been filled with over 6 feet of water, but the storage room doors' water-tight design ensured that "only" about 2 feet flooded each of the rooms.
But that was enough water to cost me a few dear possessions. The Bose speakers signed by the Doctor himself: sopping like a sponge. The Boston Globe collection from the Sox' 2004 Yankee-series surprise and World Series sweep, soaked through to the Jordan's Furniture ads. The framed poster from Sigur Rós' 2002 útgáfutónleikar had a whole new watermark of stormy Icelandic authenticity. And a whole pile of family pictures and artwork í rugli...
But there was some good to come out of it. I got to throw away a lot of wet stuff. I had fun joshing with the Polish kid who was manning the wet-vac (and my friend visiting from the Czech Republic got to do a little Slavic verbal sparring of her own) and then we made the national news, first-up on the fréttir at 19:00 (as well as first up on the radio news). And we got a nice Morgunblaðið article too. Now, Dr. Spock, how about recording Skitapakk II in commemoration of the great Sólvallagötu flood of '07...?
posted by JB at 11.3.07
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