Cleaning out the {flooded} garage

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LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) – More than 80 people were evacuated from their homes early Sunday morning after a record rainfall brought flash flooding to Jefferson County, KY.

In addition, a swift water rescue team helped about 250 people get out of their homes and performed 12 actual rescues, according to Rick Harrison of the Buechel Fire Department.

[SLIDESHOW: October 6 flooding]
MetroSafe Spokesperson Jody Duncan said no one was injured, but emergency workers safely removed people from homes and stranded cars as waters rose waist-deep in some areas.

A shelter was set up at Atherton High School. More than a dozen people took advantage of it. Other people sought at Greater Faith Missionary Church at 5217 Gathright Drive.

According to the National Weather Service, a record 5.91 inches of rain fell on Saturday, breaking the old record of 3.07 inches of rain set on October 5, 1910.

This also breaks the all-time record for the month of October. The previous record was 5.07 inches set in 2004. More rain fell off and on throughout the day on Sunday.

Luckily it wasn’t that bad in my neighborhood. But every time I looked out the window, it was pouring rain—right.into.my.garage. It rained all day Saturday, and off & on Sunday.

Monday was the day to tackle the mess. I had already cleaned out some of this corner when I took a picture. This is the back left corner of my garage. I have overhead doors on the front and the back of my 1 car garage. Water has gotten into this area before, but never this bad.

In this collage you can see the progression of my work in that back left corner. It took me a couple of hours to get it all cleared out.

I decided to build this lumber storage bench from FamilyHandyman.com. You would think from my pictures that I would have enough to build this bench. But, NO—I had to make a run to The Home Depot for some 2×4’s.

I printed out the directions and got busy building. If you build this, I recommend that you build the smaller right hand side first. It’s difficult to get your drill in the narrow left hand side. So, I built the right side including the braces, and then added the small 12” board to the top and the left side.

I made three. The second and third went really quickly. (for the 8 ft. bench, you would need 4)

I ripped a piece of OSB plywood on my table saw to fit. This is actually from a 70’s waterbed. I rescued it when I cleaned out the basement a couple of years ago.

I only had some small pieces of pegboard in my stash. As of now, I only have one piece on. After building this from the pictures—I thought it was pretty vague on how to finish it off—I needed to move it by myself. It seemed to be a little wobbly so I added two fence boards to the back, one at the top, and one (you can see here) at the bottom. I was going to use a 2×4, but decided I liked that the fence boards aren’t as thick, and will allow it to sit closer to the wall.

What you can’t see in this picture is the rest of the garage (toward the front) is still a mess. I knew I couldn’t possibly get it all out and back in on Monday. I had to get under the bench in order to get it from the driveway into the garage. I have this large HUMP that is suppose to keep the water out. It generally does a good job, but not with the rain we had this past weekend. After raising the bench onto two of my little dollies, I was able to scoot it over the hump and through the narrow pathway.

Also in this picture, I had to take down a long white shelf to get the new bench to fit the length of the wall. Note the electrical outlet. Because I need access to it, I had to shorten the length of my bench from 8 ft to 6 ft.

This is just some of the lumber that I was able to put back in the garage for overnight. The pile of plywood  in the back didn’t make it in the garage. I had to cover it with plastic. I ran out of time, daylight and steam!

I really lucked out with the shelf on top of the new bench. It was stored in the rafters of the garage and it was the perfect size! You can see I have a mess of power tool batteries.

I was able to get all of my new 1x’s and most of the trim put away on Monday. I moved the batteries over to their new home on the top shelf. If you look closely, you can see that I have raised the bench by placing 3 bricks under each support.

I have decided to not add a front to my bench. I need to be able to see and grab my pieces quickly and easily.

This was another thing that kept me busy Monday. For a long time, I had one garbage can for my ETSY sign scraps—but it was filling up too quickly, so I added another one. That was a mistake. lol  I think you have to admit, I’m pretty talented in the “stacking” dept. C’mon, you know you have made a masterpiece like this at least once!

Both garbage cans are now empty! We had a really cool day, so I burnt it all in my fire pit.

Now that the garbage cans are out of the way, the back right corner is today’s task. I generally try to clean/tidy my garage every Spring and Fall. But due to my bum shoulder I haven’t cleaned it really well since the Fall of 2011. I did clean the front part of the garage in the late Spring, but it turned hot…

I want to hear how YOU deal with all the extra bits and pieces? How do you store them? I’m always utilizing small sized lumber, so I can’t justify getting rid of it. Speaking of that, how do YOU dispose of your unwanted scraps?

You can see the other lumber storage bench I made by clicking that link.

gail