Laughingman - another great post... my family and I had a similar experience last year... we got @ 5" of rain in one day, with the ground already saturated... so much rain so fast caused the sewer main that runs near our house to run full (from rainwater leaking *into* the main)... as a result the sewage trying to get into the main from our (side) street had nowhere to go, so it backed up... our house is the bottom one on the block, closest to the main, and we have a bathroom down in our basement... and so the backed up sewage came released out of the first place it could find upstream, which was our bathroom toilet... it was unfortunately a fountain... two different times that day, which caused the dirty water to come up almost 3 feet above the floor... needless to say, *everything* was ruined, including washer/dryer, furnace, HW heater. We couldn't live in our house for a month after that... and seeing the water in the basement, and then a few days later watching a dump truck pull away with all of our basement possessions to be discarded... that was tough... I had lots of trouble after that with falling... but ultimately, I'd like to think it helped me build on my ability to deal with life's downs.
Sorry for going on about myself - hope this is helpful.
kol tuv,
Larry