Text 6997, 82 rader
Skriven 2006-10-27 18:24:00 av JOAN MACDIARMID (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av BARBARA MCNAY
Ärende: Shoutout to NYS!!
=========================
 Hi, Barbara,

 >  BM> Why do the basements there flood when the power is out? Must they be
 >  BM> pumped continually to prevent flooding?

 > You missed the later mention that I do live
 > in a swamp! Amherst some time ago was a
 > shallow lake, and the water table is near the
 > surface.

 BM> Well, no, I didn't miss it, but sort of assumed that if it were that
 BM> bad, they wouldn't have built there.

 Amherst is an old community with some
 history, but originally was a rural
 community where the houses were built on
 the more solid ridges and formations.
 It includes a village of Williamsville which
 perches on a natural escarpment. Near me are at
 least two old homes which date back over
 150 years (one over 200 years) so must be
 in feasible locations. But when people
 were starting to migrate from crowded
 Buffalo to nearby towns, I guess the developers
 built in the areas they shouldn't have
 based on the natural drainage. Near my area,
 they dug some little drainage lakes. Of course
 in my recent experience, we had also had a big
 snowstorm which was melting fast, so the area
 was extra soggy.

 I mostly grew up in the South, where they
 don't have the automatic assumption that
 there must be a basement, at all. In
 Huntsville, AL, few houses had basements
 because you would have to blast through
 layers of limestone and shale to build one.
 Northern US assumptions include a basement
 for homes because you used to keep the
 furnace there along with the winter's coal
 delivery, and because the basement served
 as a "root cellar" for the preservable
 vegetables and home-canned goods. It isn't
 so necessary now, but habit seems to demand
 it. I think it would be better to skip the
 basement in soggy areas like mine, put the
 gas heater at surface level like my Mom's in
 Alabama, just off the garage, and eliminate
 the need for sump pumps!

 >  BM> I wonder if we in the south drink more bottled water than you in the
 >  BM> north.  I buy bottled water and refill from tap the ones I carry around
 >  BM> with me, and I've begun accumulating bottles around the house, under
 >  BM> tables or other out-of-the- way but readily accessible places.

 >  I doubt it. Bottled water is a big business locally,
 > though I think it's ridiculous most of the time.

 BM> I have mainly bought "individual" bottles of water to replace those
 BM> that broke, lost their caps, or whatever; I refill those I use
 BM> regularly with tap water.

 I habitually kept plastic gallon bottles
 of tap water on hand, unsealed, because I
 used to keep aquariums and needed
 unchlorinated (aged) water to refresh the
 tanks, so always had pretty good water on
 hand for washing in emergencies. Now I do
 freeze a few pint or half-pint bottles in
 either Rubbermaid bottles or the ones I
 got from the Red Cross after blood donations
 for emergencies and also to carry along
 on my weekend bike trips. That keeps a
 little drinking water by, at least. I am
 fortunate in that my local tap water is
 almost always tasty and tested as safe.

 Joan MacDiarmid

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