Closet Tsunami

It can happen anywhere.

Not that I thought so before the early morning of March 20.

See, I live in an apartment. On the top floor. At an elevation of 6,000 feet. With no free-flowing water sources nearby, and no reservoirs technically 'upstream' of me to be a threat, now or 1,000,000 million years from now. Of all the natural disaster possibilities herebouts, a flood is just about the last on my list of worries.

But what Nature is incapable of providing -- save for another biblical 40 days and 40 nights of cow-pissing-on-a-flat-rock precipitational deluge -- leave it to Man to find an artificial way to make available.

In the early hours of the aforementioned day, I was doing what I usually do on a night off from work: staying up all night, tormenting email scammers. I had started the night with 10 pending emails to abuse; I ended it with 14. But I digress.

At about 0150 in the morning, I heard the funniest lil' sound: a muffled 'whoosh', followed by the indistinct but audible sound of running water. A quick gander outside indicated no significant precipitation in progress, though some had been predicted. Returning to my computer, I could again hear the gentle, indistinct sound of running water.

I stepped around the corner to the bathroom; nawp, nothing out of sorts there. But directly in front of me was the utility closet, containing the furnace/central air unit. And the water heater. *TOING*

I opened the closet, turned on the light and was greeted with a two sided tsunami, rolling off the top of the water heater, where in-bound and out-bound water lines fed and exited the tank. Both had blown their seals.

Whatever momentary ecstacy this caused the seals, I had another concern beyond finding them a cigarette to enjoy.

The overflow pan at the base of the tank was, for the moment, containing the flow...but I didn't reckon it would long. Though 0150am, I didn't see this as something that could keep until the time of the morning that normal folks turn to for regular jobs.

Like the property Maintenance troops.

Now, my experiences with the property management's after-hours answering service over the years had been the only weak spot in my overall contentment with this property. More than once, an after hours message I'd left never got delivered. Like the time in the dead of winter, 2010, when my furnace chose to crap out while outside temps were hovering at about 0 degrees. That morning's pre-work shower was unforgettable.

I'm not much for dramatic effect, but since I had the tools readily available to add emphasis and urgency to my call, I put my extensive sound library in my computer to work for me, and brought it to bear when I got the answering service on the line:

Operator: how can I help you?

Me: Well, hang on a sec...*away from the phone*...I told you, women and children in the boats first, dammit! Uh, I have a closet tsunami on my hands...

Operator: ah, a what? Sir, what IS that noise in the background?

*what he was hearing was a klaxon alarm from my audio archives*

Me: oh, that's the 'away all boats' alarm. I think my water heater was holed by a drifting ice berg...we're down by the head and sinking...

Operator: *I think he actually stifled a chuckle here*...uh, okay, I get it. I'll page the on call maintenance. Where are you at?

Me: Since I don't know my longitude and latitude stuff, I'm in this apt and this building...

Operator: Yeah, I don't think what you just said will help them...okay, I'm paging them now..

Me: They won't have trouble finding me...just tell them to follow the lifeboats...

Operator: *unstifled chuckle* okay, you should be hearing from them shortly...

Me: Tell them to bring shark repellent with them...

Operator: *chuckle*..okay, if you say so...

It truly is small wonder that people who don't know me think I'm a bit touched by an anvil or something. The blessings or curse of three concussions, I 'spose.

So while awaiting a call back from Maintenance, I checked my tsunami status, and found that the overflow pan was just starting to live up to its name, and overflow. Once this got started in an unchecked manner, the direction of the water -- after spreading as far and widely as it could in my abode -- would be that dictated by the laws of physics and gravitational pull. And water is notorious for finding a way down hill, through any crack or seam it finds.

If I hadn't been here -- say I'd been at work -- the two abodes beneath me might have found a bit of time savings in their morning routine. Getting their morning shower in bed, perhaps. But I don't reckon it would have made them appreciate me as an innovative or acceptable neighbor.
Especially the one on the first floor, with the already psycho cat, who'd suffered from the same problem from the unit below me, about six weeks ago.

So I did my own version of Curly, traced the water lines this way and that, and found what I reckoned was the water shut off valve. With a "Hail Mary full of grace, let's stop the waters from filling this place" -- with the theme music from Jaws playing on my computer -- I threw the valve in the direction it was willing to give.

The closet tsunami was checked, just short of the Jaws theme music's climax.

Which was a good thing: not only would Maintenance have far less of a clean up on their hands, but all those apartment dwellers in the other buildings, wouldn't wind up being awakened at 2am by the sound of lifeboats and oars, dragging across the parking lot.

Friggin' things are noisy.