faboomama I rented a sump pump. It wasn't until we got the water level down did we realize the previous owners had left behind one. Once we got the water level down to about 4 inches, we used a shop vac to get the rest of it out. Our basement is all concrete, so we don't have to worry about mildew in drywall and all that stuff. I then turned on all our fans and ran them for 3 days. We have 4 of them, so that worked. Otherwise, I would have had to rent a more powerful fan. We did all of this outside of the house via the egress window.
Good luck on cleaning everything up. Our basement flooded again recently (about 2 inches this time), but this time I didn't have newspapers sitting over the drain hole (go me!). The only problem was that a little piece of plastic was clogging the hole. Once I got that out, we had to use the push broom to get the water to the drain since the floor was now heaved from being swollen with water.
Good luck on cleaning everything up. Our basement flooded again recently (about 2 inches this time), but this time I didn't have newspapers sitting over the drain hole (go me!). The only problem was that a little piece of plastic was clogging the hole. Once I got that out, we had to use the push broom to get the water to the drain since the floor was now heaved from being swollen with water.