Flood damage!

[cedar]

I live in the NY suburbs and we just endured what seems like the annual "storm of the century," causing major flooding.

 

I escaped relatively ok. Bottom floor of my house - including my music room - had at least an inch or two of water: some rooms had a couple of feet. I removed all of my movable gear from the music room in time, so no damage. I'm somewhat concerned about the grand piano, though the water never rose above level of the wheels - just because I'm told that excessive moisture in the room could affect the action. But the room should soon be getting a thorough cleaning. We will take out all of the carpeting and some drywall, I hope within a week.

 

In my garage -- which had a few feet of water - I was keeping a CP4 in a soft case. When I was able to check the next day, the CP4 seemed just a bit damp. So I'm hopeful after it's fully dry, it will be fine. I also had some travel bags for amps in that room that got pretty wet, but not a big deal to replace.

 

On the other hand, a drummer friend told me he lost $2000 worth of various gear. Even though he was home at the time of the flood, he just didn't have enough time to react and move everything out of harm's way.

 

Anyone else here lose any gear to a flood?

[Floyd Tatum]

Sorry to hear about your damage. What part of the NY suburbs are you in, just out of curiosity?

[Joe Muscara]

Sorry. Here in Houston, that's a fear of mine. Knock on wood, it's never been even close to an issue for me, but you can't help but think about it between the reports, friends who have been flooded, and the high water in the streets.

[ElmerJFudd]

This was a surprise to everyone in the area. Flooding, water damage in many areas not in a 'flood zone'. Sump Pumps working over time!

[cedar]

Sorry to hear about your damage. What part of the NY suburbs are you in, just out of curiosity?

 

Southern Westchester County.

[synthizen2]

Anyone else here lose any gear to a flood?

 

I do know of someone (a business associate) who lost a lot of gear in a FIRE (not Flood) out in California.

 

Fire and Water, Earth and Air. Which element is the most destructive?

 

Thankfully, none of the elements have attacked my area (yet).

[Docbop]

Seeing lots of musician posts with photos of music rooms with water in them and drummer Antonio Sanchez drums that are half-full of water. My heart goes out to all in the path of the storm and flooding.

[cedar]

Just discovered that I forgot to move a couple of other items: Hammond XK1C (which I haven't used for years and probably won't miss) and the soft case for my Mojo (which I do use and hopefully can save). Still, I'm relatively lucky,

[Adan]

I've been thinking about our members in New Orleans. The flooding in the Northeast seems to have been quite unexpected.

 

We still have our small cabin at Lake Tahoe, holding onto it as a rental property. I have a keyboard there but, honestly, who thinks about keyboard equipment in that situation. It now is looking like the fire won't reach our place, but it could have gone either way.

 

20 years ago I lost a nice Yamaha upright in a house fire, among lots of other stuff. It's just stuff, life goes on.

[jerrythek]

So sorry to hear of your damage, Cedar.

 

I once had a washing machine that we ran late one night that burst a valve and never stopped filling, soaking my downstairs in a few inches of water. Lost a few smaller synths that were standing on end against a wall. Never fun. But your damage sounds much worse. Hope all works out OK.

 

Jerry

[Josh Paxton]

I'm happy to report we dodged every bullet this time around: no water in the house, no damaged gear. Sorry to hear about those who didn't fare as well.

[analogika]

I may have told this story before.

 

Lost a couple of Hammonds, a Mk1 Rhodes, D6, CX3, Viscount OP6, and a bunch of effects, a blackface Twin Reverb, Leslies, and a JC120 to a fire back in 2015. This was my rehearsal and storage space.

 

Moved to a basement studio a few years later. Water damage (just a few inches, but my other D6 was standing in it and a bunch of vintage studio gear is *still* getting repaired for oxidised pots and buttons).

 

Moved out of there late 2020, built a minimal studio setup at home, B3 off for restoration, everything else that wasn"t being repaired into storage.

 

The storage building exploded in May of this year.

 

My gear - about thirty synths, some drum machines, mixer, monitors, cabling, most vintage stompboxes, D6, E7, two MKS-70, Matrix 6, JX-10, Wurlitzer 200a, a 58 B3 Bob Schleicher chop, couple of Leslies⦠all in the condemned part of the building.

 

Right now it looks like it will be next spring before we even know whether we"ll be able to recover anything in the process of building demolition â let alone know what condition the gear is in by then, what with fire hosing and probably rain getting in through the blown-open building.

 

 

Sooo glad the main B3 and my Lintronics Memorymoog weren"t in there.

[Al Quinn]

Sorry Cedar. While it could have been worse that still sucks.

 

We"re about 70 miles east of Manhattan and lucked out. Ida passed to the west and north of us. Henri was headed straight for us by ended up passing enough to the east that we just had a lot of rain and some wind. Sandy was another story. Our yard was wrecked, the ocean was in our yard and came within a few feet of our house and music room, but stopped just short of causing major damage to the house. Our boat was totaled.

[Reezekeys]

I feel bad for those that have lost possessions. Some had it worse - I believe more people lost their lives in the northeast than in Louisiana (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). One of my FB friends described being caught in a flash flood while driving in NYC. He was rescued by a good samaritan. His car is gone.

 

I was driving in Connecticut on Wednesday night and can say it was the most torrential downpour I've ever seen. I stuck to main roads, took it very slow, and had the car in a lower gear to keep the engine rpms high in case I hit a deep puddle, which happened a few times. Visibility was probably less than 100 feet in this rain, and it was evident that I could wind up in deep water before I'd see it. Scary, but I made it home OK. We never lost power and our basement has a few wet spots, no standing water.

 

This is probably a message for all of us with equipment stored in basements or garages to head to Home Depot or Lowe's and spend a few bucks on cinder blocks to get our stuff off the floor, at the very least.

[The Real MC]

I had floodwaters get into my rental house back in 2011. Fortunately I got all my gear to the 2nd floor and didn't lose much. I feel bad for others who aren't so lucky. It's bad enough losing possessions to a flood, cleaning up the aftermath is even worse.

 

When I was house hunting I was very cognizant of proximity to rivers/creeks, bodies of water, and flood zones. I was not anxious to relive the experience of flooding. The house I am buying is on a hill twenty feet above the street and the yard is landscaped such that rainwater flows away from the house.

[cedar]

Somewhat to my surprise, the CP4 may not have survived. Turned it on this morning, with headphones plugged in. At first, I was getting sound, but keys were randomly sustaining. Turned it on and off and heard nothing.

 

On the outside, the keyboard appears bone dry. But I'll try again in another day or so.

 

I still feel lucky. This is the only bit of damaged gear I actually care about. It gets used a lot and needs replacing pretty quickly, but I'm guessing that won't be hard. Some of the other stories in this thread are pretty awful.

 

One other observation: this experience really drives home the fact that I should not be in the market for a real B3 or vintage Leslie. The only place for those items is in my now-under-repair music room, and I will never have the confidence that I'd be able to move such large items out of flood danger quickly.

[David Emm]

Time for a global warming thread. I was living in a split-level house during a modest flood. When I opened the door to the den (repurposed garage), my dog was on the couch, which was floating along casually. I was damned glad my gear was higher up. I cringe in sympathy at some of the tales of loss. Ow!

[Shamanczarek]

I was driving through Bound Brook, NJ today and saw what appears to be a Hammond CV on the curb. Bound Brook is very flood-prone under normal heavy rains and they installed flood gates a few years ago. This time they weren't able to close the flood gates due to a stuck NJ Transit train so flooding was worse than it might have been. I took a look at the organ about a half-hour ago and the preamp is missing. It has some veneer peeling at the top of the cabinet. The pedals seem to be missing also. Don't know if it's salvageable but it is on E. Union Ave about a quarter mile west of Mountain Ave. in case anyone in the area is interested.