Water Heating Woes

As some of you know our washer broke two weeks ago. I have been working on saving up money for a repair and washing clothes at my parents house. So yesterday I went over to do laundry. Having a nice time. Calvin has taken to spilling glasses of water just because he's two. I noticed that there was a wet spot in my parents carpet and I was a bit irritated that he had made another water mess. I grabbed a towel to clean it up and when I stepped on the towel there was a gush of water. Not good. So I checked the storage room and my parents bed room no water running in there. Then the water heater closet. And the floor was wet and the water awesomely enough was not draining into the drain in the floor even more awesome. I went up stairs to wake up Emma because this needed more than one adult. And took some pictures and sent the to my parents. Emma got the kids a movie and began trying to get ahold of my dad.  I found the water leaking out of the bottom of the water heater. Yeah! Emma looked up on you tube how to shut the water off to the water heater and i read up on how to turn the heat off and the gas off. we turned the water to vacation and tried turning off the gas but the knob would not turn past pilot. We then began draining the water heater. I tried collecting it in buckets and Emma got the shop vac and cleaned up under my parents bah tub and cleaned out the drain so the water would drain better. She also got out the fan and soaked up water from the carpet. Eventually we decided to just let the water drain out and use squeegees to guide the water into the drain. This was way faster.  We did this for about two and a half hours. Then my mom came home Then my parents neighbor who knows how to fix these things came over and hooked up a hose which made everything way easier. ( I will remember that for next time.) My dad came home and another neighbor brought over a shop vac that worked better and they cleaned up the carpet really good. When it was empty I helped my dad take the water heater outside. And the men hooked up a new one.
So now I know a little bit more about water heaters. The crazy thing is that if it is older it could go pretty much anytime. They were saying that many people come home to find their basements flooded and ruined sometimes after weeks. ( vacations) Crazy day yesterday.