A completed catastrophe

This evening Jake uttered the phrase, "well, at least it's not an ongoing catastrophe."

And that is what you call the glass half full.

We have a frozen pipe, scourge of the New England Winter/Snowpocalypse/Artic Blast.

More serious situation: we have a BURST frozen pipe.

Possibly more serious situation: it is a DRAIN pipe that has burst.

On the up side:

1) The damage is in the basement, not in our living area/ceiling/roof.

2) We turned off the water to the sink and won't use the kitchen sink or dishwasher so as not to add to the water situation.  These are the only two drains affected, so this means all other sinks/tubs/toilets in the house are authorized for use as normal.

3) The vast majority of soaked stuff was a) empty boxes, b) tools and (ironically) plumbing supplies, c) extra kitchen stuff d) camping equipment, including sleeping bags, which apparently soak up a lot of water.

4) JB quickly grabbed the one box of importance -- the one labeled "Bridget Archive" -- and dumped everything out of it before the wetness of the cardboard could soak into the contents.  Archive has been saved.  Also, now I am clearly going to have to do a blog post on the archive!

So, as Jake said, it is not an ongoing catastrophe.  It is a completed catastrophe, and now we just have to clean up the mess, dry out the stuff, throw a bunch of stuff away, and oh yeah, get that pipe fixed.

Fuller post tomorrow, after we get some sleep and return to further survey/assess the damage.

We are officially done with Arctic Winter 2015.