Catastrophe

Furniture floating in living room.

Denny wading across from his house to Mom's. He did not get any water in his house but it did get close.

The back of the house. The street is completely covered. There is a creek back there.

The sliding glass doors holding back the water but note the stream coming through the gaskets of the door.

Me standing in the living room--wet and dirty.

Living room.

Trying to move things up and out. Had to be careful because it was slippery.

Well it rained last night. I knew it was raining hard because I woke up to the thunder, lightening and heavy rain.

8:00 am-phone rings. It is Tim Lindorff (Mom's neighbor.) He said that the street was flooded and it looked like water was very near Mom's house and perhaps we should come check on it. We immediately went over. Got into the house and knew that there was trouble. We could hear water rushing in. Went downstairs and boy was there ever water. I was surprised and shocked. It was coming in the sliding glass doors. What to do first?? The photo albums--get them out even though the water was not as high as where they were but I was not taking any chances. Katie & Tim (neighbors) started carrying them up. We just took the ones on the lower shelves. Oh dear!! What was in the bottom of the entertainment center. Opened the doors and just started grabbing water soaked items. More shelves in the cupboard next to the entertainment center. More dripping items were recovered and bought to the garage.

Rick (Willernie maintenance guy) showed up and started assessing what the problem was. This is what happened. It seems that the culvert that takes water from the creek by Mom's house down to the wet lands had collapsed. This had happened previous to all this rain. As a matter of fact they were planning on replacing it on Monday. But because of this the water could not get through and backed up. He was making phone calls and got a big huge pump to start pumping it to the other side of culvert to be carried away. Oh!--the water that was being pumped was amazing.

Now Pudge runs off to rent some sump pumps to start pumping out the basement. I did not know where to start. Denny shows up. We started carrying more things out to the garage and driveway. I thought to myself "well this is one way to get started on cleaning out Mom's basement." Now we are dealing with wet linens, rugs, clothes. Furniture is floating around so I float it over to the door and we start hauling some of it up. More people showing up to look at the spectacle. I think nobody is quite sure what to do and that goes for me too. It started to be a community event. Lots of neighbors so some visiting is getting done.

We cannot open the sliding glass doors because of the bank of water behind them. We had to be patient until the big huge pump took care of some of the water. This took about 3 hours. 2 neighbor guys show up and wanted to help. They go to get their water vacs and they worked all afternoon with Pudge at their side along with them. Barb (mayor) showed up with another wet vacuum. Friends -- Laurel and Butch are there and chip in moving stuff, vacuuming and then pulling up all the wet carpet. Pizzas were ordered to feed the crew.

Insurance company is called. It is told to us that the city's insurance company will also be called. So how this all is going to unfold remains to be seen.

7:30 pm we started to hit the wall. Pudge's back is aching. I am dirty, wet and tired. All of the carpet is pulled out and in a big pile in driveway. Floors are wet vacuumed as much as possible. There is silt in some areas but it does not smell and it can be dealt with easily. Lots of stuff is laid out in garage to dry. There is a pile of trash of things that could not be salvaged or saved. Fans are all over the basement in an attempt to dry things out. Furniture is piled. With a deep breath we left for home. We have both taken showers. Pudge is in bed. I wanted to blog about this so I am going to publish this before something happens to it. This is my 2nd try at this blog and I am paranoid. I have more pictures so I am going to end with --to be continued.......