I live along the Anclote River near Tarpon Springs, FL, and up until about 10 years ago, has only flooded once in about 1972. For whatever reason, since I've moved here, It's flooded twice, Once up to my Knees, and again up to my Ankles.

If the water comes no further than 18 inches in the Mancave, which is on the first floor, everything will be okay, but if it comes up higher than that, either I have to raise the games up more, which isn't much of an option, or, have some contingency that if I know a hurricane is coming, I roll all the games into a Uhaul, and head for higher ground. At least in a Uhaul, I can move them. In the garage, I'm limited by the roof. The Uhaul will double as a storage facility for the few days it takes for the water to receed. It's doubtful that insurance would be interested in compensating someone completely for a loss like that, and, as we all know there are man personal feelings tied up in our collections. I guess I feel like I should take out SOME form of life insurance, or plan, for them, they're almost like my babies!!

If anyone has any other suggestions I'm game. I even thought of possibly putting some sort of leg extenders on the games.. If I only needed another foot or something, that idea might work, but more than 2 feet, and the game is going to hit the ceiling with the top folded down as well as likely become top heavy and unstable at some point.

This is what happened this time around.

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What a lively discussion!!

I don't think the "bags" idea is stupid. If they could put a car in one I don't see why a pin wouldn't work? You just have to make sure the "bag" is reinforced for this purpose. I like the idea of some stilts or something, that could buy a well needed foot!

My house is already on stilts, and if I had my way all my games would already be upstairs in my living room, spare room, bathroom, etc..

Thanks again for the encouragement and suggestions. A "pin rescue" service is what I need..

I am thinking Logically. That is why I'm discussing it with like minded people, maybe some of whom have dealt with this before.

I don't think the idea of the bags was necessarily for some massive flood event, if the water gets 8 feet deep, the bags probably wouldn't be a great solution, and I suppose you wouldn't really know how far up the water was going to come. Are you a lawyer or something? The way you say, "The OP Shows a photo.." I thought I was on trial! haha..

My house is on the river. Does that mean I don't get to own Pinballs? No, obviously not. If I were a bachelor, Like I said, the'd all be upstairs with me. The house is secured to it's pilings with some sort of Metal clips of some sort. An engineer friend of mine looked at it and gave it his blessing. I'm not worried about the house. I'm several miles from the gulf.

I do have a soft spot in my heart for block and tackle, I that arrangement with my last boat. I'd lift the entire boat out of the water, so the boat couldn't sink! I'm not sure if the garage could support all 8 pins suspended from the ceiling like that though, I like a simpler PVC solution.

4 PVC Pipes for each machine, whatever the distance is from the folded down head to the ceiling. I could put bolts through the PVC to keep the feet from falling through. The problem I see is how am I going to get the pin up onto these things in the first place? I have one of those Harbor Freight Hydraulic lifts, but that will only lift a pin maybe a foot off the ground.. Maybe in stages?

Oh well. I'll draw up my contingency plans for the NEXT time..

-Brian

I'll mark this as dead.dddd

Ben- (and the others too)

Thanks for more of your great ideas! Sounds like as I suspected, I'm not the only one with this problem.

For those who do not enjoy riverfront housing, the easy thing would be to just Move. At some point I will, but with the housing situation the way it is, the market and all, I'm going to sit it out for another little up-swell. Hopefully before the GUlf does it's next "upswell"

The block and tackle ideas are the greatest.. I like the decision to move the gameroom consecutively upstairs- Unfortunately I don't have that much room upstairs. I could probably fit my collection in the house, the bathrrom, Betroom ,Kitchen stuffed with the things.

But something someone else said might make more sense.

1) I"m limited in the Garage Gameroom anyway,
2) A location close, but not my house, would make it slightly more difficult to access, but the space I could gain.
3) But where? I looked at a commerical store front type thing, or even just commerical looking space, without really much for a public front, but space is outrageous! I thought about something like a U-Store-it type of place, and I guess they are temp controlled.. Has anyone tried this? Housing their pinball collection at a storage place? I know some people use them as little workshops, the have power, so why not Storage, and once in a while they get played

There is a new place in Tarpon Here, the Replay Museum, where this guy has basically taken his pin collection, and opened it up to let the public play. At storefront, for $13 for the day. Does the word museum make it somehow "Non-Profit" or something?

-Brian

Wow. That's a horrible Story! I'm glad you got most of your games out of the way!!