We have a bay window with a French Drain just outside. We used to have gutters and a large downspout that drained into the French Drain, but during roof replace in 2002 the workers damaged the gutters when they removed them to replace the decking. We have not yet had the money to replace them.
As an intermediate step, we dug out the area to allow the water to drain directly into the drain and we keep that area clear. We removed any wood that may have been placed as decorative to allow any water to drain away.
We live on a hill and have not gotten water in before this storm. The house has never had a flood claim since being built in 1979.
We have a slab foundation and vinyl plank flooring adhered to the slab.
Harvey dumped almost 52" of rain at our home, almost half that in a few hours one night. Which is when we noticed water seeping in under the baseboards at the bay window.
We dammed the area with every towel we own and I spent a sleepless night mopping up all the water, filling my 2.5 gallon bucket twice, and sopping up any water that seeped out of that area with the towels.
The following night we had just a tiny bit of water get in.
My suspicion is that the water came in through the weep holes because the French Drain wasn't large enough to handle the amount of water that it needed to handle. Our neighbor's French Drain attaches to ours outside the fence line. Theirs backed up. Ours may have as well, although we had scoped out any dirt that may have managed to get into the main drain and our shunt before the storm hit in preparation.
My question is two-fold.
1) There is wainscoting paneling and a baseboard on the interior wall of the bay window. Should I pull that to dry things out? And how?
2) What else should I be looking for?!
[Area of Damage] (https://i.stack.imgur.com/JudZT.jpg)
In the photo there is some discoloration near the floor. There is also a "ripple" in the panel. Those were there before the storm. I think they showed up after we had galvanized pipe burst in the house in 2012.
