For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for April 07, 2023

Nightmare. Still wish I had a basement, for bad weather.

Buckets? Shop vac? Where’s the. water shut-off?

The water is coming from rain seeping into the basement, not from a broken pipe. The water shut-off has no effect on rainwater encroachment.

I wonder if the Patterson’s homeowner insurance will pay for the damage to the house.

Or did John forget to pay the month’s premium (giving Elly another excuse to shoot off her big mouth)?

I am a little surprised Elly is not blaming the broken shop vac on Michael sleeping late. Perhaps she has matured a little since yesterday.

I hope that they un-pluged the freezer and other stuff before they start walking around on a cement floor in a flooded basement.

Please tell me that this actually happened and Lynn didn’t just invent it as a way to justify being mad at her children for actually sleeping in on the weekend.

That’s the only bad thing about having a basement… the potential for flooding. Although… I’ve never seen a walk-out basement ever flood before…

This is going on all over our village right now, where most are on well & septic, i.e. no sewers to drain the basement. The power failed during an ice storm, followed by heavy rain, on Wednesday, with the ground already saturated by melting snow. The power company’s latest repair estimate is 8:00 pm tonight; but their first estimate said Wednesday night, and their second estimate said last night!

No when it rains she pours

Gotta figure out where the water is coming from. All the suspects are various levels of bad, of course. If it’s the main drain, Michael is gonna want to decontaminate himself because there’s raw sewage in there. If it’s a broken pipe inside the house, you can stop the problem getting worse by shutting off the house’s water supply. If it’s groundwater infiltration (which, this time of year, it probably is), nothing you can do will stop it until all the spring runoff has finished draining into the aquifers and rivers and lakes, and all the buckets and shop vacs in the world won’t keep up. Your best bet will be to go to the hardware store and see if they still have any sump pumps or transfer pumps in stock. Hard to find them this time of year, because I guarantee you, you are not the only person with this problem.

How do you shut off rain???

By a waterfall….I’m calling you-hoo-hoo-hoo

We will share it all beneath a ceiling of blue

We’ll spend some heavenly days

Here where the whispering water plays

There’s a whipporwill that’s calling you..hoo..hoo…hoo

By a watefall,we’re dreaming too

There’s a magic melody…Mother Nature sings to me

Beside a waterfall…with you

Poor Dad… guess where the fingers point when he gets home. Rusted, broken sump pump – maintenance is a Man of the House’s issue.

I hears new houses are being built with a shut-off to each bathroom/kitchen’s water pipe….

Now is not the time for salty talk…

Move, Elly! Do you feel like the sorcerer’s apprentice yet?

A trip to Home Depot is needed, but they are fresh out of sump pumps!

Tomorrow’s strip:Entire Patterson family is hunched over to the rising water

Elly: “This is the only way we can stop the flood. DRINK THE BASEMENT!!”

Where’s Elizabeth? Shouldn’t she be on spring break too? Is Elly gonna yell at her too for being at the mall with her friends instead of home checking the sump pump?

What is a shop vac?

Call the Morton salt girl.

Maybe Creedance Clearwater band can help?

Open the basement windows, Ellie! If it gets that high, that’ll take care of it ;D

There’s a hole in your basement, dear Ellie, dear Ellie…..

If Michael can find the leak, he can plug it with his finger.

the basement never floods until you finish it.