water worries

mother nature is a tough cookie. for two nights we've had hard rain ... on top of 4 inches of snow - so my entire yard is a soupy mess. why is that a big deal? well my yard drains to the same pit my crawl space drains to, so if the pumps don't keep up, the water from the yard will fill up the pit and back-up into the crawl space ... not a good thing. during the second night one my sump pumps went out. it takes two to keep up with the amount of water we've had. so for 7 hours today i battled mother nature. i was under the gun because there is another inch of rain beginning to fall with a forecast for sleet turning to snow with a possibility of 1-4 inches. so i had to get both pumps working before we got hit again for the third time. long story short it took 4 hours for the water you see in these photos to drain and another 3 for me to finish adjusting the pump - which required me rigging up this bucket with holes in it....without the bucket the pump kept clogging with debris from the bottom of the pit - a problem i noticed last year it flooded in mid winter ... ugh! well, since i added the bucket both pumps are running full blast. phew, just in time. i won't say i "beat" mother nature, i'll just say i'm a step ahead ... for now.