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It was about 11 am and the day was Just getting rolling.  Perez was dicing onions for soup, Niell was setting the line up. Carlito had had just swept and mopped out front and was putting up the deliveries.  I was bitching at somebody to make me a lumberjack special.  Verging on hangry, I had to eat. Out of nowhere, water strarted dribbling on Perez’s cutting board.  A brief exchange of glances, and we had our phones out-snapping pictures and smiling.  It was then that I noticed Teddy, not smiling, working on the hand sink by the walk-in.  His eyes were wide, he frantically screwed the thing back together, thinking his tinkering had caused some cataclysmic plumbing catastrope.  It hadn’t.   A water pipe above us had frozen and burst.  I yelled to our manager Damien at the host post.  His eyes bulged as he came into the kitchen, spinning and sprinting to lock the front doors and no doubt alert our owner Adam. The restaurant was about to open.  Tuna sandos were about to start flying.  We had to do something!  We threw down some 22 qts and watched them fill alarmingly fast. The small trickling stream became a hammering downpour.  Water gushed from a ten foot long section of the ceiling, soaking us and everything in sight.  The fluorescents filled with water and flickered out.  My six pans started filling with water, so I slammed the lid of my fridge.  Immediately my mind raced to my chocolate, cookies, machines.  I had just pulled Brulees out of the oven and they steamed on the speed rack as they topped off with ice cold water.  The next few minutes were a flash.  A snatch and grab, sloshing in an inch of water in bullet time; a fast moving object in slow motion.   FUCK!!  My cookbooks!!  We scrambled to save our shit and then started snatching equipment.  Chocovision, GelatooD2, KitchenAid, my knives.  Everything was piled on the pass.  Sheet pans cross-stacked on piles of books, ingredients, lexans of cookies.  I then  noticed that it wasn’t raining in the dining room, or even on the front line. The back kitchen was a nightmare; a torrential storm pounding on the ocean.  Our stockpot of demi sizzled, filling with dirty icy water, piss on hours of anticipation.  My cordial filling on the stove was near the corner of the stove, filled and splashing over the sides.  The servers were pitching in by now, packing and wrapping the line and piling it in the walk in.  In spite of everything, I felt family gather around me, warm me.  Neill was icing down fish and Carlito was squeegeing the water back into the kitchen, keeping it from soaking out into the dining room.  Survival mode was in full swing as we got all the perishables locked down and away.  The ice machine was empty.  I wondered about my freezer and lowboy.  Soaked to the bone and dripping, we stood at the pass, watching.  It rained of an hour before a plumber got it turned off.  I was near tears.  This is my home.  I’m here more than I’m anywhere else.  My chocolate was wet.  Adam, in a flurry of phone calls had people in there,  killing the power and  shining around flashlights.  I thought of a recent post by linecook, and shook my head at the coincidence.  Adam had us writing down what happened while it was fresh in our minds.  I sat at the bar writing, utterly crestfallen. Perez argued with the electrician about turning the power back on with our hood lights full of water.  Before long Damien was calling all our reservations and sending them to Pigeon, Clyde Common, Blue Hour.  A clean up crew arrived with a huge industrial vacuum, heavy weight garbage bags, and surly determined looks.  They went at the back kitchen with extreme prejudice, pulling ruined ceiling tiles and pitching anything wet.  Perez and I bailed to close-by Riley’s, waiting to see what would happen next.