What were you doing at 1 am?

How does something so small cause so much damage.  And I'm not talking about the baby!

See that teeny tiny little split on that copper tubing.  Well, it caused all this:  (and just in case you are wondering, it's about 1/8-1/4 of an inch)

I don't know if you can see it well, but the wall is all wavy from the water running down it.

But not to worry, after a 1am call to our homeowners insurance, a disaster relief company call, and a water clean up call someone came out to help.  And now it looks like this:

 Don't ask me what that is in the wall, I can only assume that it is either sucking out water, or blowing air in to dry out the wall.

 That blue tarp there, yeah, that used to be a ceiling, now it's just a blue tarp.

 

Water marks on floor, many many fans blowing to to dry the place up.

What on earth happened here you might be asking.  Good question!  Here's what we can come up with.  Around 4pm Trent went into the apartment (our home has an accessory apartment attached to it) to turn on the swap cooler as temps have climbed to almost 90 degrees the last couple of days and we know how hot it gets in there.  He got on the roof, uncovered the unit and then went inside and turned on the water to the swamp cooler.  He went upstairs and watched the unit for a bit to make sure there was no leaks.  None were spotted.  

Around 12:30am our wonderful renter came home and immediately called us.  In my sleepy haze all I could make out was that something was leaking.  Trent went to the roof and drained the swamp cooler and then went inside.  A few minutes later he returned; "um, you may want to come see this, the ceiling has caved in."  I'm still a little out of it, but I get up and see Trent downstairs on the computer looking up disaster relief numbers.  I found the number for our home owners insurance and we gave them a call and go things rolling. I couldn't believe what I saw when I went over there.  There was literally 2 inches of standing water on the main level in the kitchen.  Upstairs in the hallway where the swamp cooler was at there was so much water in the carpet, inches of water.  You know when a mess is so big you don't even know where to start, that's how I felt.  I grabbed all the towels we had in our house, it didn't even touch the water standing on the kitchen floor.  I could see bubbles popping up as the water seeped under the vinyl flooring.  All the while Trent's been talking to the insurance, the disaster relief people they work with, as well as the company who has now been contacted to come out and clean up.  It was 2:30 before I climbed in bed again, and almost 4 before Trent came back up.  Holy mess!  

I'm not really sure what happens now.  I'm hearing that the fans need 4 days to do their thing, and then a contractor will be sent out to replace the ceilings (downstairs and upstairs).  The problem; that tiny little tear, it appears that the pipe froze.  Still not sure how though, we had such a mild winter, not very cold and it is INSIDE the house, in the very well insulated attic.  

I am so glad Trent didn't have to work last night!