The "Flood" Gates of Hell ...

It came without warning. It came with great ferocity and strength. It came and came and came...

No, I'm not talking about the hottest stud in the latest porn movie. I'm talking W-A-T-E-R!!!

I sell high-end furniture in an 18,000 square foot facility covering two floors in Philadelphia. It's a well respected establishment with a long history of contemporary furniture, rugs and accessories. We've been written up in magazines, newspapers and are even credited in many shows on HGTV, as well as furnishing the "Real World Philadelphia" house. It's a great old building with high ceilings and an expansive view from the front door, interrupted only by the duel rows of massive columns that hold up the six floors of loft condominiums upstairs. Much of the character of the interior (as is the case in many loft apartments in the neighborhood) is the old industrial look; exposed pipes snaking the cieling, worn down hardwood floors and other such amenities and flaws that remind you of an industrial age gone by. The original hardwood floors on the main level, for example, are forever stained with grease and grime from the original occupants. For decades the building was some sort of factory and signs can still be found, including a ten foot high rusted piece of machinery in the back storeroom. And, although you would never notice by looking down the length of the 300 foot room (but very noticeable when you're up on a ladder changing the overhead spots) the floor actually slopes and is about a foot higher in the rear of the room than the front door. I've learned that, whatever was made in that building 70, 80, 90 years ago, the only way to clean the floors was to start from the back and hose it down, allowing all the water to wash out into the street. But, as with many great old buildings, there are great old problems that come along with it.

The lower level (or basement) is about 7,000 square feet and, although the ceilings are much lower and there's no natural light, we've managed to make the best of it with some brightly colored walls, textured fabrics and vibrant area rugs to break the monotony of a drab painted cement floor. As with the upstairs, little has been done to comprimise the old industrial feel the building embraced. When the building was vacated and gutted, many of the pipes and electrical fixtures were left behind and, although decades since used, were always a reminder of what once was. Some pipes, mostly unused drain pipes from the upper floors were removed and the holes in the floor capped for all eternity.

Or so we thought...

The past days have been hotter 'n hell, with temperatures in the upper nineties and heat indexes nearing 110 degrees. It was only a matter of time before a much welcomed cold front would push its way through the city, bringing with it more bearable temperatures. But, as with any summer cold front moving in on an area soaked with humidity and firey temperatures, it could be quite unpredictable. This past Saturday was no exception to the rule. What was strange was how quickly everything changed.

It was a fairly busy Saturday and we were pushing towards the end of the afternoon. Each of the three salespeople were all with potential customers throughout the two levels. I was working on what was promising to be a very lucrative sale and showing a couple several options on leather recliners, dining furniture and rugs for a new addition they had just completed on their house. One co-worker was in the lower level showing fabric samples to a couple interested in livingroom furniture and the 2nd co-worker was showing off other items to someone who had just walked into the store.

The sales desk is about twenty or so feet away from the wall of glass that overlooks the street. I was looking up some prices on the computer and suddenly something felt out of place. I looked towards the bank of windows and then looked back at my client: "Did it just suddenly get dark?"

"They said we're supposed to get some bad storms today." The wife replied.

A few minutes later, I took the couple downstairs. As we reached the top of the stairs, a sudden blinding flash of lightening filled the brightly lit showroom, followed almost immediately by a clap of thunder so loud that, for a brief second, I thought all six floors of the condos above us were crashing down.

"I guess this is gonna be a bad one." I chuckled, as we made our way down the steps to the lower level.

A few minutes later, I was back upstairs looking up information on something else that peeked my client's interest. I heard the chime of the front door and looked up to see a young couple dashing inside. On the opposite side of the glass I could see rain like I haven't witnessed since Hurricane Floyd several years ago. Unstoppable, the rain poured down onto the city as if the dark sky was suddenly torn open, unleashing every drop of moisture it once tried to hold. Within seconds, I can see rushing water spilling up over the curb; whitecaps breaking against the tires of parked cars like waves on a rocky beach. A soft steady roar could be heard through the glass as the rain increased even more in intensity. I chuckled nervously, thinking of my basement at home and hoping that this was a fast moving storm.

A few minutes later (seriously, no more than five or six minutes since the rains started) my phone at the sales desk beeps and it's my co-worker down on the lower level: "Uhhh, Chris. We have a leak down here."

Thinking it's just a some condensation dripping from an air conditioning pipe, I casually ask: "Is it bad?"

"It's...uhh...it's coming up out of the floor."

"Oh shit!" I slam the phone down and head to the stairs. As soon as I reached the landing where the stairs turned, I stopped and looked around the floor. It didn't seem so bad. I did notice a trickle of water off to my left, travelling towards one of the drains in the center of the room. My co-worker was looking up at me and then back down towards the floor behind a chair. That was when I heard the strange bubbling sound. I rushed down the remaining steps and headed over towards the corner where he stood.

In the ground, where one of the capped holes from an old drain pipe was located, water was literally pumping up from under the building. As I watched in astonishment, the water rose around my feet, sweeping over the area rug and heading towards the center of the room.

"What the hell am I supposed to do?" I said to no one in particular. I've never witnessed water entering the building like this before, especially from a hole that was a good ten feet below street level and another seventy feet from the street!

"Okay." I finally said. And that was it. I thought a solution would come to me, but that was the only word out of my mouth. Mopping wouldn't work. Already there was about a half inch of water on the floor and it was pumping more violently, spewing up rust and debris that hadn't seen the light of day in probably twenty years. So far, only about 30 seconds had passed since I was on the step staring down.

I rushed off towards the back storeroom where the wet-vac was housed. I threw open the door...and stopped. The now familiar gurlgling/pumping of forced water echoed in the darkened room and, in what little light I had to see with from the doorway, it was evident that the drain in the center of the room was also pumping up water...and GET THIS: water was also pumping up out of the wash tub in the back corner!! I can see water spilling down over the lip of the fiberglass rim and splashing down onto the floor. I closed the door just as my co-worker came up behind me. I said the only thing I fealt was appropriate: "You don't want to go in there..."

I then heard the hissing. The sound scared the crap out of me. At first, I thought it could only be one thing: gas leak, but then, as I hunted down the source of the sound, a familiar gurgling accompanied the hiss. Across the other end of the room from where the water was bubbling up out of the ground like a newly found oil well (and has not let up yet), I discovered another capped drain. The metal cap was still tightly mounted over the hole, but water was trying to force itself up around the tiny crack around the edge of the cap. A small, managable pool of water formed around the cap and I moved away, thinking nothing much of it. I ran back upstairs to call my boss. Through a not-so-perfect cell connection, I desperately tried to explain the situation. He suggested using the wet-vacs in the back storage room until he arrived, but he couldn't understand the scope of the situation. Hell, I couldn't even understand the scope of the situation and I was witnessing it first hand.

Outside, the rain was still pouring. Inside, the water was still pumping. All in all, not fifteen minutes had passed since the rain started. I figured I should just call 9-1-1, but then I noticed a couple heading back downstairs. The couple I had been working with were up on the main level discussing dining chairs. I couldn't believe that things were continuing normally while I frantically ran from level to level like Chicken Little around the farmyard. I headed back downstairs and noticed yet another couple sitting on a sofa, mere feet away from a newly formed stream coursing through the center of the basement, looking through fabrics. I suggested to the other two salespeople that we should get these people upstairs.

From my vantage point, the front end of the basement looked dry, but I decided to check it out anyway. Boy, was I wrong. Another pipe, this one coming in from the outside, somewhere under the sidewalk in the front of the building, was orinally capped with cement. The cement chunk, about an inch in diameter and three inches in length, was lying on the floor about two feet away from the pipe, which was now spewing water out onto the floor. All I could do at this time was laugh.

The second drain (the one that was still capped with only a little bit of water bubbling around the edge of the metal disk) suddenly exploded with enough force to send dirt and rust fragments halfway up the side of a hutch standing next to it. Water quickly flooded that portion of the room.

About 30 minutes after the rains began, they ended just as quickly, along with the pumping of the water from the drains. It amazed me that, after only five minutes or less of a torrential downpour, the storm drains outside had gotten so completely filled with water that they started to back up into the buildings. After all was said and done, there was about an inch of water covering about 30-40% of the floor. There was nothing left for us to do except go home and wait for the water to drain again.

The next morning, I arrived about an hour early. My boss was already there with a shop-vac trying to salvage the rugs. Where there was cement exposed, only a few puddles remained, leaving behind small piles of rust chips and other dirt (including a crushed tin can that was so old, the label had worn away).

Worse things could've happened. Worse things have happened. But all in all, the only loss from the storm were about a dozen rugs and maybe an ottoman or two. We were open for business and, outside of the lingering smell left over from the carpets that had been hauled away, things were pretty much back to normal; a fairly busy Sunday...