Water, Water Everywhere, or My First Call to 9-1-1

Welcome back, friends! I hope you all had a blessed and joyful Christmas and New Year's! :) We had a lovely time visiting family and friends but I'm looking forward to getting back into a routine, catching up on my blogging and continuing to settle into the apartment. There's still boxes everywhere!

So speaking of the apartment...back on Wednesday, December 15th, we had quite the eventful afternoon. I was just logging off at work when I heard what sounded like rain outside our sliding door so I look and there's water pouring down onto the patio! As this occurs to me, the fire alarm for the building starts going off and one thing hits my mind...there's a fire and the water must be from the sprinklers upstairs. So I throw on some shoes, grab my phone, purse and camera, then run outside. As I came around the side of the building, this is what I saw (click on image to enlarge):

Water, water everywhere...

Water was pouring down onto our patio from the third floor, but the water appeared to be coming out from under the eaves. Still not knowing what was going on and being one of the few adults around, I sent one of the kids from the building (they'd just gotten home from school) up to the front office to let them know what was going on and I called 911. Let me just say I hope I never have to do that again! It was so stressful not knowing what was going on but knowing all the same that something was wrong.

So a few minutes later, the front office personnel had called maintenance and the fire trucks arrived...

God bless Montgomery County's finest! They showed up and got right to work, coordinating with the maintenance staff to shut off the water main and diagnose a burst fire sprinkler pipe. This was one of the coldest weeks of the winter and the pipes just gave out. The water that had spilled onto our patio was actually forming icicles it was so cold out! Thankfully, everything was put in order fairly smoothly and efficiently, with the water turned off to the building while they fixed the pipe. Maintenance and the firemen came and looked at our apartment, helped me put buckets under the few small leaks we had and turned off power to part of the apartment until everything was fixed.

One can only hold up for so long and be stoic under such circumstances and I hit my limit the minute they walked out the door. As I called my husband at work to inform him of the situation, I sank to the floor since my knees seemed to not want to work for a few minutes. Another lesson learned in this married life: never lead with the fact that you had to call 911. Apparently I almost gave Dan a heart attack when I started our conversation with that fact. He calmed down a little after I explained that it was simply a busted water pipe and that I was okay. :) Water and electricity were both restored later that evening.

The following Monday, December 20th, maintenance came to repair the water damage in our living room and guest bedroom and then Tuesday (the day we left for Michigan) they came again to clean the carpets. Thankfully, the pipe burst above the third floor and we're on the first so the damage was fairly minimal. My CD collection got the worst of it so we're very thankful that the situation wasn't any worse.

The whole thing was quite the adrenaline rush then crash. But God provided for us in more ways than one. As I dried things off and cleaned up in the guest bedroom, I was afforded the opportunity to photograph some beautiful cardinals as they foraged for food behind our apartment building. Such a quiet peaceful moment I never would have known if it weren't for the chaos that preceded it.

Soli Deo Gloria!
Meghan

P.S. My husband likes to call me the paparazzi because I take so many photos and jokes about taking away my "paparazzi card" when I forget my camera. When he found out I grabbed it on my way out of the apartment, he said that I had earned a second paparazzi card. :) Couldn't miss documenting it! Besides, there were honeymoon photos on the camera! No way was I leaving it in the apartment!