Loads of Luck In Washer Flood

Let me set the scene – it’s one of the calm before the storm – meaning the downpour in my entry hall. I was upstairs getting my little guys ready for bed. I said I would read to them, but first I wanted to put the school uniforms in the washer, which is upstairs near the bedrooms. I started the machine and then went to Pete and Matt’s room to read.
Then the phone rang. I went downstairs to the kitchen phone because the caller was giving me information I needed to write on the calendar. While I was talking I heard the rushing sound of water. I peered into the entry hall and saw water pouring out of the ceiling light fixture.
I ended my call and ran upstairs to the laundry room, where the water already was an inch deep and rising fast.
I quickly turned off the machine thinking that would stop the flow. It didn’t. Instead, it continued to squirt out wildly from the washer hose. The water was very hot, and the laundry area was like a steam room at an athletic club.
I knew I had to get behind the dryer to shut off the faucets. First, I thought, I should unplug the dryer, but I didn’t want to be electrocuted. I climbed atop the washer to pull out the dryer’s cord from the outlet.
By this time, the kids had arrived on the scene to see what was going on. I was trying to shut off the water at the faucet, but the hot water was making the faucet too hot to handle. I had Maureen hold a towel on the leaking hose so I could do it, but even that didn’t help. The water kept shooting out around the towel and through it.
Meanwhile, as Maureen and I were getting our clothes soaked and our hair curled from the steam bath, Machaela, Mike and Johnny were putting pans and towers on the entry hall floor.
I decided I would have to turn off the water for the house. One time, my dad showed me where the shut off faucets were should something like this happen. Now I couldn’t remember if the shutoffs were behind the furnace, under the sink or by the water meter. All I knew is that they were in the basement.
I ran from faucet to faucet trying to figure it out. Every time I tried one I yelled to Pete, who was waiting at the top of the basement stairs so he could yell to Maureen who was still holding the towel to see if I found the right one. Finally, she said the water was subsiding. I ran back upstairs and was able to get the other faucets turned off.
What a mess! Every towel, plus the load of clean laundry I had set on the floor with the intention of folding right after I read to the boys, as soaked. The school uniforms were sitting in the filled washing machine tub. After I turned the water back on I had to rinse them in the bath tub, wring them out and hang them to dry because they needed to be worn to school the next morning.
After everything calmed down again Mike said, “that was fun.”
The next day when the plumber came to fix the damaged hose, he told us how lucky we were.
“It could have been a lot worse. If you weren’t home to get the water turned off you would really have had a disaster,” he said.
As I looked at the water-soaked and stained entry hall-ceiling, the shorted-out light fixture and piles of soaked laundry, I thought, “Boy, I guess I’m just one of those people with all the luck.”
April 27, 1993