As I mentioned in my intro. I am the prepared minded person between myself and my husband.
My husband, whom I love dearly (and who in some good ways keeps me in balance, as I can be a spendthrift on gadgets and collectibles if I'm not careful) seems to be in denial of anything serious happening based on our history in this house/neighborhood in the last 10 years so far.
I feel that we have been amazingly lucky/blessed over the years. A prime example, and honestly my biggest current concern is that during hurricane Sandy, we were one of the very few locally that ONLY lost electricity for about 45 minutes. This is amazing since there were people within just a few miles of us which were out of service for over a week. Even my office, which at the time was just 7 miles away, was closed for a full 4 days due to loss of power.
This is a huge concern for me, because due to a high water table (and likely an underground spring), we have TWO sump pumps which run intermittently 24/7. If we did not have those sump pumps, our basement would constantly flood. We have one backup pump with a battery backup, and one additional battery backup at the ready, but that's IT. The basement is unfinished but we keep a lot of belongings down there. Fortunately, most of them are in plastic containers, and when our basement DID flood a couple times many years ago (before re-doing our entire drainage/sump pump system), it flooded several inches. I'm not so concerned about our belongings, but about the fact that our boiler, HVAC, gas tank and washer and dryer are all down there, standing directly on the concrete floor. That would be a HUGE monetary loss if we received major damage and I don't think they are insured (though I should check on that).
My question is, what have people in similar situations done to counteract flood issues of more than 48 hours? Keep in mind that it's JUST me trying to prepare. I asked him about adding a third backup battery and he resisted even that.. so it's a two-fold issue; Physical maintenance of the backup plan, and spousal attitude. I don't have time to constantly rotate things like fuel for a generator and I've read that there are a lot of cons regarding generators as well.
I'm curious if there are other low maintenance ideas others have used...
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