Woman Swims in Storm Waters After Severe Flooding Turns Basement into 'Indoor Pool' (Exclusive)

Hearing noises astatine 2 a.m. is usually a bad motion — particularly during a storm.

Jessica Loos was having problem sleeping erstwhile she heard thing clang successful her basement. By nan clip she sewage down there, location were already 2 inches of h2o covering nan floor, knocking things over.

“I ran to get my hubby retired of bed, and we instantly started moving everything that we could retired of nan basement," Loos, 26, tells PEOPLE. "The h2o was coming successful truthful accelerated that it sewage up to 14 inches successful nary time. Water was pooling extracurricular our house, and there's obscurity for it to drain, and truthful it drains straight successful done our foundation.” 

Over nan adjacent fewer hours, Loos and her hubby ran up and down nan stairs carrying arsenic overmuch arsenic they could, starting pinch their astir valuable items. All nan babe apparel they had been storing for their almost-2-year-old boy were drenched, but they tried to salvage arsenic overmuch arsenic they could.

The h2o seeped into astir everything, including their front-loading dryer. As nan sun came up, Loos called her parents, who unrecorded nearby, and they helped clear much things retired of nan soaked basement. 

Soon, they deed a constituent wherever location was thing other they could do. With her hubby and begetter upstairs, Loos decided to “make lemonade retired of lemons." With a caller mermaid TikTok inclination successful mind, Loos took retired her phone, deed grounds and hopped in.

“I sewage successful nan water, and it was freezing cold, and I group my telephone up connected nan bottommost of our basement, and I conscionable went for it, and I posted it,” Loos shares. The video sewage 3.5 cardinal views.

She besides made a video "paddling" done nan "indoor pool" connected an inflatable excavation and different asking her friends to subordinate her.

People successful nan comments were speedy to make assumptions astir nan information of her videos, specified arsenic whether nan h2o was clean, questioning if she could get electrocuted, aliases infested by a "brain-eating amoeba."

However, Loos shares that her location was built wrong nan past 5 years and there’s nary relationship from her basement to nan sewer. 

“In nan video, from nan angle, you had nan brownish ceiling reflecting connected nan water, which gives it much of a brownish tone," she shares. "I did not extremity up sick. I did not get a brain-eating amoeba, for illustration galore of nan comments said, and I was conscionable trying to person fun."

"There was nary energy that was gonna beryllium a concern,” she adds. “It was conscionable a immense actual pool. All nan wiring is successful nan ceiling. There was nary interest of being electrocuted. I admit nan group who were genuinely concerned.”

Thankfully, nan h2o was cleared retired of nan location by 9 a.m. that aforesaid day. Since posting nan first video, Loos has been communicating pinch plumbers to measure nan harm and revenge a declare pinch her insurance. 

Loos lives successful Camp Point, Ill., an area that seldom experiences floods, which intends nan harm apt won’t beryllium covered by her insurance, she says.

“Our supplier said, ‘Unfortunately, location is thing we tin do. There's thing nether your argumentation to screen that,’ which was heartbreaking, because location was a batch of ruin, and there's thing that they tin do," she says. "All of this will person to beryllium paid for retired of pocket.”

In position of loss, location were a fewer things that couldn’t beryllium salvaged, including Loos’ precocious schoolhouse certificate and salutatorian certificate. Loos and her family person been doing laundry astatine her parents’ house, and are slow cleaning up nan messiness and rebuilding from h2o damage. 

Loos has since group up a Ring camera successful her basement to watch for immoderate much flooding. She says “the adjacent fewer weeks will beryllium to make judge that we support nan basement clean.”

“We person not seen immoderate mold aliases had immoderate issues. In nan past, we've kept a dehumidifier running, and we've had our basement cleaned, making judge that if we ever do get rain, we enactment connected apical of our basement.” 

In nan meantime, Loos’ basement "pool" is closed for nan season, hopefully ne'er to reopen again.