Please God, make the water stop!

It was one week ago today that I woke up and found 3.5" of water in my basement. Prior to that, we've never had a drop of water down there for the 10+ years we've lived in this house. Over the course of a few hours, that 3.5" increased to 6" (no thanks to my wimpy 1/6 HP pump) by the time a local company arrived on the scene to pump us out and do a rough install of a sump pump.

Our basement has been dry for several days now, but that is only because the new sump pump is now dumping water outside 2-3 times per minute instead of the 5 times per minute it was kicking in last week. We were given a generic looking Utilitech pump (apparently a cheapie exclusive to Lowe's), and while it saved our butts when we were getting desperate, I'm pretty nervous that it will fail under such a heavy workload. :( Based on what I've read online, I'm trying to find a 1/2 HP cast iron Zoeller sump pump, but I seem to have a better chance of seeing a unicorn than finding the pump I want locally.

Other than the joy of the Feds declaring that most of the state is a disaster area, I have a nice new stream running through my property and a series of sinkholes where the guy that built my house so kindly buried the stumps from our trees. If anyone out there ends up building a house some day, Do not let them bury any stumps on your property! I've been plagued by sinkholes for years, but this water-filled mess is by far the worst:



Keep the faith and stay dry out there...