While September and October are two of the most beautiful months weather wise in southeastern Virginia, they also coincide with the period of highest hurricane activity. Based on news reports, we may be off to a bang late in the week when Hurricane Earl - projected to perhaps reach category 4 strength - is likely to be right off the coast. Obviously, that's not exactly how one wants to spend Labor Day weekend. After last November's northeaster and the attendant flooding, the boyfriend and I spent a good part of the weekend building flood doors for the house. The treated lumber frames will insert into door frames and hold a rubber membrane tightly in place and hopefully provide a water tight seal at every door. We also caulked and waterproofed all the door sills and installed sills outside the doors leading to the rear deck.*
Should our flood doors fail (we don't believe that will happen, or at worse we will get relatively minor leakage), the inside of the house has already been made waterproof up to a level three feet above floor level, thus ending the need to engage in costly and time consuming tear out of wet sheet rock, etc. Since the floors in the first floor are all marble, we simply roll up the oriental rugs and carry them upstairs. Hopefully, none of these preparations will be needed, but we figure if we are fully ready, we won't need to use them whereas if we were not prepared, we'd look back and wish we had been.
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