You think YOU"VE had moisture problems?

In September of 1999, I lost my book where I kept up with oil changes and such, so I decided to start fresh and change the oil in every thing I owned at once, then start a maintenance database to keep things straight. Needless to say, I had used oil in every available bucket and pan I could lay my hands on by the time I got through, and had not had the chance to recycle all of it, as I was taking a couple jugs at a time to a facility on the way to work. I changed a LOT of oil for a couple of weekends, what with all the cars, bikes and atv that we had.

Within 2 weeks, hurricane Floyd came along to Eastern North Carolina, dumping 24" of rain in about 24 hours. A dam burst 15 miles upstream of the nearby creek, and boy, did it let me have it! Water in my home got to 18 inches, and the workshop/garage got to the 5 foot level. I relocated to my rental house the next day, and damn! it flooded that one a week later when the river water backed up. 2 houses gone in 1 week.

Fate in life is strange, because the changing of the oil is what saved my ****. When the water rose, all the oils and parts washer solvent floated on top of the water in the workshop, trapped inside the walls. As the water receded, the oils just wrapped around everything in the building, and coated it all with a greasy layer of oily preservative! When it was all over, I was able to start the restoration process, and it's been a 10 year ordeal so far, with many hours of refurb left. One reason is that after the flood we started moving, chasing money in my wife's rapidly advancing career. I bought a forklift, restored it, and bought a semi trailer to move my shop stuff.

Hopefully, we are through moving for a while, and I ended up with a detached 2 car garage, which I am rebuilding to get back on track in.

Just thought some of you who worry so much about condensation in the garage would get a kick out of the photos I took AFTER the water had gone down to the 2 foot level. That's my son in the photos pointing to the water level reached by the flood. My flood insurance paid off because it was a hobby shop.

Enjoy.....

More for you to cringe over....

I would be soo pissed. Thankfully, I do not live anywhere near that much water.

holy ****... so many nice tools and things... underwater. Were you able to salvage all of the equipment, bridgeport etc.? Yeah, the oil probably saved quite a bit of stuff.

~James.

StumpXJ said:

holy ****... so many nice tools and things... underwater. Were you able to salvage all of the equipment, bridgeport etc.? Yeah, the oil probably saved quite a bit of stuff.

~James.

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I thankfully only "lost" a few small items, because on the day these pics were taken, a friend with a pro unit pressure washer was stationed on higher ground, and was chemically cleaning most of the vehicles, while my son and I drained fluids, removed batteries, and other such. I also picked up and rotated every hand held power tool every day for weeks, along with working any moving mechanism on anything I could get to. These next pics were taken in 2003, after some cleanup had occurred, and I was just starting restoration on the forklift in preparation for the move.

RJ

Man, that is a bummer. Why not just open the door and let the water out.......

Couldn't resist, sorry. I love those Honda Shadows. I always wanted one of those and still do. I used to ride my Yamaha SR250 up to the Honda shop and just dream of those Shadows. I am assuming by the pics you were able to save it. Does it still run good?

OH YEAH, I remember that week. I was living in Carolina Beach at the time. We decided to leave and went to a friends house in Virginia. Too bad, the flooding was soo bad it took us three days to get home.

Tell me, have you ever spent three days in a van with your wife, mother in law, 9 cats, a ferret, a dog, and a parakeet? None of us were speaking after day two.

ringer said:

OH YEAH, I remember that week. I was living in Carolina Beach at the time. We decided to leave and went to a friends house in Virginia. Too bad, the flooding was soo bad it took us three days to get home.

Tell me, have you ever spent three days in a van with your wife, mother in law, 9 cats, a ferret, a dog, and a parakeet? None of us were speaking after day two.

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Holy hell. If that was me, the news story would have started like this:

Fifteen went in...only one came out.

Shadow still runs, along with everything else.

I was on my way back to Norfolk after a 6 month cruise..lol we hit 2-3 hurricanes back to back just before we pulled in, My hometown was Wilmington where i was gonna take leave when i got back, wound up having to fly home cause the roads from N.C. to VA where all blocked.

bmwpower said:

I would be soo pissed. Thankfully, I do not live anywhere near that much water.

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Floyd was the costliest hurricane in North Carolina history. Some areas experienced what would be considered a 1,000-year flood, while most of the eastern part of the state was hit by 500-year floods.

A couple of towns were totally wiped out -- areas that had never experienced flooding in recorded history. And then to add insult to injury, four weeks later, another storm dropped another 6-8 inches of rain.

Wow - you've gone thru a lot - damn nice to see you came out the other side! Cheers!!

WOW! - that's quite an ordeal indeed. But it sounds like you're dealing with it just fine.

Now, how about some photos of the new and restored toys...er, tools?

Wow. That'
s bad. I had a garage fire that ruined every thing I owned. 37 Pontiac, 40 Ford coupe, 41 Buick. I have pictures but refuse to get them out. Still hurts, Glad your getting back to normal.

MN4x4 said:

WOW! - that's quite an ordeal indeed. But it sounds like you're dealing with it just fine.

Now, how about some photos of the new and restored toys...er, tools?

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Here is a thread on one of the few things I have been able to TOTALLY restore. Everything was in storage from 2004 until late 2010 while were relocating due to my wife's job and getting our lives back together.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=124933

The next link is the makeover of a detached garage into my present workshop.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=83926

Next one is moving things from storage to my new shop.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=61583

Exactly two years ago tomorrow Irene made my garage look like the OP's ......including the oil all over everything.

My wife's ***** nephew was staying at the place and left several un-contained gallons of used motor oil in the garage.

I didn't think of it as a blessing.

I hate flooding.

I'd much rather deal with wildfires any day of the week.

Thus, I am in NM. And not in any flood area.

I hate that you had to deal with that. Water is an amazing thing that we can not live without but can destroy everything we love in seconds. We stood up on the road 32 years ago and watched our home literally wash down a raging river that was just a wet weather spring only the day before.

I'm glad you were able to recover.