The Time Preservation Society's Flood Relief

In the wee hours of morning of Friday, January 26, 2024, just as I was uploading my latest review video, disaster struck.

One moment I was closing my camera case, and the next, I heard the unmistakable rushing sound of water. It’s one of the few times that sound is unwelcome, and downright frightening.

Actually. It’s probably worse if you’re on a boat.

But anyway. The flood…

The next 12 hours was spent salvaging what we could as the water levels rose up. We battled it around the clock with a shop vac and a carpet cleaner. Then it was a week of pulling up carpets, gutting the studio, and the rest of the basement of our little home. And trying to figure out what went wrong. The water went as high as 4 inches throughout the entire studio and basement areas (which includes laundry, storage area, and cold cellar).

We had three different floods over three days in total before we were able to get to and fix the problem.

It all came down to a malfunctioning sump pump that we couldn’t easily get to.

Not a great start to 2024.

Our house is piled high wherever we found room with any of the gear we saved.

So there’s good news and there’s bad news.

I’ll give you the good news first because a good positive lead is good.

I keep all of my mics, recorders, interfaces, and otherwise any products that I have or will review high on shelves in their cases along with rechargeable silica packs because I’m anal that way.

My computer and all my external drives were high up.

My camera and lenses and monitors were floating, in their watertight Nanuk case… which I am DEFINITELY going to talk about in a future video.

I lost at least 7 pounds from all the exercise, anxiety, and failure to eat. But it was like seven pounds of muscle I think. The fat, well the fat remained. Still… good.

So all of that stuff is good.

We’ve had no shorts or breaker electrical problems and will not. And we will absolutely be able to rebuild.

So here’s the bad news.

I had some casualties in the flood. Several of my expensive guitar pedals including my Line 6 floor processors were under water. Along with one of my speaker cabinets, my power distributer, my violin, an assortment of stands, some lights, all kinds of sound proofing, and other smaller but needed items.

Not to mention an insane amount of treasured memory boxes, family heirlooms, and other important items that were being stored down there.

The personal cost of this whole thing is really enormous — at least for us.

We also have to invest in preventative measures to be sure this never happens again.

And I have to do all this really really fast so I can get back on track making videos for my viewers.

My son and a few of my viewers have suggested I start a GoFundMe, so here I am.

It never feels good to ask for help, but this is one of those times that I have to do it anyway.

Anything helps.

If donations aren't your thing (and I totally get that), maybe purchase some digital downloads from my store at https://thetps.ca/digital-downloads or some merch from my shop at https://the-time-preservation-society.myspreadshop.ca, or SuperThanks me on my YouTube channel at https://youtube.com/@TheRecordist

Or just watch and share my videos!

Thank you so much for always sticking with me!

Cheers, guys!

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