[NoCmpromiz]

We had a storm, and the neighbors across the street are without power - the pole by their driveway has a dangly fusething. Lightning must have fried a transformer somewhere on their circuit (we still have power - must be on a different phase leg, if not their dangly fusething successfully isolated us from the cause.) The local version of ConEd says that there are about 60 customers affected with restoration by 4 AM.

Had some torrential downpours of Noahic proportions and water pouring into the basement faster than the sump pump could remove it. Fortunately as long as the pump is running the rising tide doesn't get too high but if we had lost power then we would have an extremely wet basement.

And to think that the notalwaysAccuraWeather folk are saying that this storm is from the front that is supposed to steer Arthur out to sea after it kisses the Carolina coast.

We shall see... ;-)

[NicknamedBob]

"Had some torrential downpours of Noahic proportions and water pouring into the basement faster than the sump pump could remove it. Fortunately as long as the pump is running the rising tide doesn't get too high but if we had lost power then we would have an extremely wet basement."

One obvious thing to do in regard to sump pumps; use a battery-powered sump pump. Of course, the battery will give up after a bit, but maybe you could rig a line from your car, at least to get you through the worst of it.

Another thought depends on what your water source is. You can use municipal water pressure to pump out basement flooding via the Venturi effect. Seems wasteful, I know, but it's spending dollars to save dollars, so you'd have to do the math.