leadership dot #2146: flood

It was a simple thing, really – my housemate had just hooked up the hose and was giving the new blossoms a drink of fresh water. Fortuitously, I was in the basement at the time – just the right place to hear the waterfall cascading down from my basement ceiling. It seems that the outer pipe froze during this bitterly cold winter, but, unlike the rest of us, did not live through it. Thus, when the hose was on, it was a rainfall inside the house.

We often have torrential rains and I have always worried about basement flooding, but never from above. The palettes I had as “protection” did little and the generator in case the sump pump goes out was irrelevant. It was actually the tarp to protect things from drywall dust that did the most good, and that was never part of my flood mitigation plan.

In our homes and in our organizations, we can practice precautions and take steps to minimize risk, but it isn’t always enough. Sometimes your damage control depends purely on luck – whether you define that as good or bad – and you just need to deal with what life pours on you, even when it comes from above.