Dealing With A Flooded Basement

I had just gotten out of the tub after a long day of cleaning the house and then working out in the yard.  I was taking my dirty clothes to our basement laundry room when I heard my husband from the basement say, “Something is wrong.  Something is really wrong.”  My stomach did a quick somersault as a began to see water squirting up between the boards of our laminate flooring.  The “floating” laminate floor was literally, floating!
My Better Half and sons worked diligently to carry shop-vac loads of water out of the basement…every couple minutes for…well, awhile.  We weren’t sure if the water was coming in the floor drains or the four loads of laundry I did that day had drained themselves all under the flooring.  We later came to find out that this had been the case.  The drain where my washing machine drains, was clogged.  Because the water was going under the laminate flooring, I didn’t notice it at all during the day.
As they worked to clean up the floor, I ran to the hardware store to buy a snake to run down the drain.  I walked in at 9:50…10 minutes before the store closed.  Of course on this night I was greeted with a warm, “Just so you know, the store is closing in ten minutes.”  It was all I could do to not respond with the things that actually popped in my head…Thank you Lord for helping me keep my mouth shut!!  I found what I needed and a whole lot more.  Just so you know…I don’t need a sump pump, a heavy duty auger, or $30 attachments!
Anyway, the little snake helped, or so we thought.  But the water was still really high in the drains and we really couldn’t put anything down the drain.  Laundry was out of the question.  However our focus shifted to drying out the floor.

My Better Half is a genius!  He used PVC to create this long chain attached to our shop vac to blow air under the laminate flooring.  (Yes, he used the t’s from our hill-billy horse shoes game…that’s what was free and available after-hours)

We ended up having to rent a power snake to find and deal with the clog in the drain.  Thankfully, about 35 feet out, the snake cut through the clog and the water in the drains recessed to their normal level.  What a relief!!

and is back in order.  The clog is cleared and we are water free.  I am so thankful this was not any worse than it was and we will be very careful to prevent this from happening again!