Scrap Room Floods -- Ack!

I had quite the adventure last night. I was about to post here when thunder started shaking the house, so I decided I better unplug my computer and bug. The rain was pouring torrentially, and a few minutes later I heard the sound of running water -- uh-oh! I ran into my office and water was pouring into the window well from the sides, and it was starting to fill up! Even worse, it was the window well right next to my scrapbook table! My paper is all in those vertical Crop-in-Style storage cubes, so I was freaking out. I ran outside to see what was going on, and our whole backyard was flooded. The water was running like a river down the side of our house, which is where the window well is. I looked down into the window well, and in the about 30 seconds that had passed it had filled up past the window line and started leaking into the house! So I ran back inside (spreadng mud EVERYWHERE) and got every bucket and trashcan I could find to put under the window. Then I evacuated my paper and everything important from the floor of my office and ran to grabbed another bucket to go out and try to start bailing out the window well. On the way I ran next door to my neighbor’s to warn them. By the time I got back to the window well and climbed down in, the water was up past my knees. Even getting in the window well was an adventure! We have window well covers with latches on the inside to keep them from being opened. Luckily (or more likely blessedly) we’d only fastened one of them and I was able to pull it half-way off. If they had both been fastened, it would have been a disaster. At any rate, I couldn’t climb down the ladder so I had to jump down in, but there was 6 inches of mud in the bottom and I slipped and fell down, at which point I was in mud and water up to my armpits!
So I tried to start bailing, but I could see every bucketful of water I poured out running around to the puddle that was coming in the sides! Total exercise in futility. So I climbed out and tried to figure out what to do. There was a big pile of dirt (well, mud now) in the side yard from the fence installation, so I thought maybe I could build a dam that would channel the water away from the window well. When I first started it seemed pointless as well, but it actually worked! It took me quite a while, but I was able to keep any more water from running into the window well. Marvelous as this was, I still had a window well with 3 feet of water in it! Enter Dave and Alyssa, our fabulous next door neighbors, who had finished pumping out their own window wells and came to my rescue! Without them, we would have had serious flood damage, but with their pump they had that window well empty in just a few minutes! We had next to no damage, but at least 50 gallons of water had been caught in the various buckets, bins and trash cans under the window. After the window well was empty, Dave and Alyssa pumped out as much of the water from the yard as they could. I am so grateful for my awesome neighbors!
I was also proud of myself for solving part of the problem by building the dam. Dan was still on his way home from Grand Junction and didn’t get here until it was all over, so I was pretty much on my own until Dave and Alyssa came over. Shovelling and moving all that thick clay mud was definitely a good workout!
Most of all I’m SO glad none of my scrapping stuff was damaged – now THAT would have been tragic! :) I have some pics of my very dishevelled scrap room, but I don't know where the cord is to get them to the computer in this big mess!