Sump Pump Pits

Casper families battle to keep homes from flooding

Three hoses snake across the bare floor of what used to be Jessica Riis' music room.

They run to a sump pit in an adjacent closet where three pumps work furiously to keep rising groundwater from flooding her family's Casper home. The pumps only switch on when necessary. One has been running nonstop since March.

The Riis family lives across the street from the North Platte River. Since early spring, they've been battling to keep it from invading their basement from below.

Water rushes through the pumps at all hours. The sound rattles through the house. It's a constant reminder that the worst could happen.

"You just can't forget it," said Jessica's mother, Mary. "You sit here and listen to that. It drives me crazy. I have to turn the TV on or listen to music. You just can't forget about it when you can hear it."

The family isn't alone. Several neighbors on Riverbend Road face the same flooding threat from rising groundwater. So far, they've managed to keep the river out. But the outcome is hardly determined.

The North Platte is running higher through Casper now than at any time since 1984 -- years before the homes were built. So there's no way of knowing exactly what will happen if the river reaches flood stage.

"We really love our house," said the family's next-door neighbor, Jim Brown. "But I would move out in a heartbeat if I could sell it."

Dream home

It was supposed to be their dream home.

Jim and Mary Riis built it five years ago on a quiet street in the northwest corner of Paradise Valley. The home faces the river, the front window framing the water as it flows east.

The house came with a large basement that Mary decorated with pictures depicting the story of Noah's Ark. Her daughter, Jessica, lived in one downstairs room and used the other as a music space.

It was Mary's first new home. She felt blessed.

"We just kind of said to ourselves, this was meant to be," she recalled. "Everything had fallen into place."

All of the homes on the south side of the street have basements, Mary said. Before her house was built, she asked the contractor whether it was advisable to construct a basement so close to the river. She was told her home was not in the flood plain.

It took less than a year before the flood problems began. At first, it was water in a basement window well. The family installed a French drain system and the issue went away.

Here We Go Again

First, a little backstory. As you may recall, I recently put my home up for sale in order to relocate closer to my job. As you might also recall, I have had severe basement flooding the past several years due to 'five hundred year' floods we seem to get every spring and sometimes even in the fall. So, I invested thousands of dollars in 'fixes' to stop the water from finding its way into my basement. Two check valves and a gargantuan exterior sump pump pit and sump--along with considerable green later--we thought we could finally thumb our noses at Mother Nature the next time she decided to throw another water event at us. But it gets better. In three out of four nights we ended up getting more heavy rain and from Thursday night through Tuesday night our rain totals came to over twelve inches. And the storms hit each night right about bedtime and lasted most of the night. My son and I were up all night three out of four nights. By yesterday morning, I could've gotten a part as a zombie on The Walking Dead without the need for any makeup. And my mood? Well, let's just say if a scene if the aforementioned zombie flick required ripping someone's head off or going for the jugular, I'm your zombie.

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