Water: a curse and a blessing
HomeWater: where you can help

(Psa 69:1-3)  Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.


Thanks for stopping in on this Web page dedicated to the recent water problems at OSLC.  This page will attempt to be current with information and updates about flooding in our fellowship hall.  We will also try to make this a place to come for possible volunteer opportunities that may arise.

The Problem


In a nutshell: we have water seeping into the classrooms and fellowship hall beneath the narthex and sanctuary.


The problem began with a couple of small areas in Mission Matinee Theater and the service room behind it. Heavy rains the week before coupled with ground still saturated from 100" of winter snow showed up in these easy to handle areas on June 7 and seemed well under control even into the evening of Sunday, June 8. On Monday, June 9, the problem had spread considerably.


A team of volunteers with shop vacs spend Monday and Tuesday sopping up the water as quickly as it arrived. However, the problems began to spread with water appearing along every wall and coming up through the floor. By Wednesday the efforts to keep up were called off.  Items of value were removed or raised up.  This included the organ blower system, wood cabinets, costumes, televisions, speakers, and the popcorn machine.  Water has risen to 2" in certain portions while some islands of driness also remain.

As of Monday, June 16, the rooms are pretty much all in water although new puddles seem to have stopped appearing.


Water has had a devastating effect on many people and institutions.  Click here for places you may be able to help or to add places you know of that need volunteers.

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Mold creeping up a wall
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Two inches of water in room #19
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Water in room #20
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Standing water in Essential Grace room
 
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lights reflect in fellowship hall water

Updates

July 17, Thursday: As you can probably tell from the space between reports, the last two weeks have been relatively uneventful.  The storms of last weekend did not do anything significant, but they did highlight a leakage issue we hadn't noticed before.  We hope to get to it.  We also hope to install some indoor drainage in the far corner of Mission Matinee and the utility room behind it.  This seems to be the only corner that seeps even with only a inch or so of rain.

So today they have begun repairing the basement in earnest.  In the next week lots of progress will be made.  Thank you for all your continued prayers.

 July 2, Wednesday:Today seems to mark the end of the wetness.  The level of the underground lake in which we have been sitting has dropped below the level of our basement floor.  The large sump is filling at only about 15-25 gpm - well within the range of a single pump keeping up with it.  I even turned off a few fans today, and the air feels quite dry.  There is rain in the forecast, but I don't believe it will be the kind of event that will mean anything serious for our issues; in fact, the front lawn looks like it could use a few drops.

June 30, Monday:  This weekend saw a substantial roll back of the waters.  Only a couple of puddles remain, and there are no visible leaks going on.  The sump is flowing at a rate that it only takes one pump to empty it.  Today we worked with a gal about re-carpeting.  The material we will use stands up well to water.  We are also investigating types of wallboard that are not susceptible to mold.  Lots going on, but we will not begin any reconstruction until we can say that we have been dryfor about
two weeks

June 24, Tuesday:  The water continues to go down little by little.  The bottom four feet of most of the walls has been removed.  Now we will work on taking steps to put things back together in such a way that if this happens again we can minimize the damage.

June 19, Thursday:  Many of the walls in the fellowship hall have been partially removed and other work has begun to decrease the musty odor.  There's still a lot of clean up work to be accomplished.  In a few places the water is still seeping in.

June 17, Tuesday: The good folks from Serv Pro are here today to tear out dry wall.  They have a special meter that measures moisture in walls, so they hope to be able to save the time-line and several other mural pieces.  Today the water is showing signs of receding, although the northeast end of the basement still has standing water.  The large sump is still filling at over 100 gallons per minute.  We seem to have spared the pirate ship from ruin.

June 16, Monday: Every room in the lower level is still affected by water. The change from yesterday is nearly imperceptible, so it appears that the flow has slowed. However, there is still too much water for us to attack at this time.


June 15, Sunday: Pastor B. changes his sermon topic to reflect the anxiety and concern over the natural disaster of which we are part. In his sermon he reflects on his hope to get a Web ite just to keep people informed about the problem.