“… they run and hide their heads.” John Lennon.

24+ hours of nearly continuous rain. So far. Hurricane Patricia is shredding itself apart over the mountains of Mexico. Flood advisories are posted for Texas. Jacquela and Steven visited Emerald Hill. Saturday afternoon. First chance to see how the house holds up under a stress-test deluge.

The entry at the side door to the kitchen is dry. The entry at the back door is dry. These are the two weakest points of entry for water, based on the termite and water damage we found when taking apart the house during demo.

Upstairs, all the ceilings and walls are dry.

With one exception.

There’s a slow dripping leak at the vent stack pipe in bath 3. It appears the stack is open to sky above the roof — and water is slowly traveling down the pipe. The paper protecting the tile floor is wet. As is a small section of drywall, wicking water up the wall from the tile. Steven alerts Ron and Mark at Ranserve via email and messaging. Jacquela locates a bucket in the garage. Steven puts the bucket under the pipe. Ron texts that the bucket should suffice until Monday morning, when he will determine what fix might be required.