Flood!

Last Sunday night our house flooded.  From rain.  It was about 11 pm on the 3rd and we heard some ominous sounding storms so Chad got up and checked out the weather.  It was a tiny cell right over our town that we expected to move on shortly thereafter and leave us alone.  Around 11:30 the power went off so we set the alarms on our phones so he could get up for work if the power wasn't back on by morning.  At 1:30 am there is a horrible knocking at our door and we both spring out of bed.  The neighbor is yelling and we both immediately think someone is dying (our next door neighbor lost his wife just a month ago so this is fresh on our minds).  Then we hear what he is frantically yelling, "You gotta get out, you gotta get out! Everything is flooding!" He goes on more about how you can't drive down the street because of all the water but that we have to get out.  It's at this point Chad and I realize our feet are wet and that there is water coming into our house from our back door.  We frantically get dressed (still in the dark since there is no power) and try and figure out what to do.  The figuring out what to do part really consisted of us frantically running around freaking out.  I tried calling my dad but kept mis-dialing and selecting Chad's contact stuff rather than Dad's and I was so frantic I couldn't figure out how to even stop the call to get it right.  Because of what the neighbor said, we were both in such a panic that we didn't even think about his advice.  I was on the phone with my Dad explaining the situation and about to grab Emeline's seat so we could get her in it (while also pulling things up off the floor that I didn't want ruined) when it hit me, without any prompting from my Dad even, that this wasn't a life-threatening situation.  We don't live near a creek or river and our house wasn't going to float away.  This wasn't New Orleans and we weren't going to end up on our roof with no place to go and no help in sight.  This was simply a drainage issue and there had just been too much rain in too short a time span and at worst we would end up water in the house but we weren't going to die.  At this point we start to calm down some more and see if we can't find some flashlights and candles as we continue to pick things up off the floor.  After we get things settled, we head out to front porch, which has remained dry, to survey the damage and talk across the cul-de-sac to the neighbors.  Around this time, the rain is letting up some and within the next hour we notice the waters are receding.  It continued to lightly rain the rest of the morning but the flooding had receded and there was just normal drainage everywhere.  The power came back on around 3:30 or so, too.  While talking to the neighbors we found out why the neighbor across the street had been so freaked out.  He had about a foot and a half of water in his house just streaming in his front door.  He had so much water in front of his house that one of his cars that was parked in the driveway was pushed sideways by the water.  The amount of damage to his house and one other house on the cul-de-sac is so much worse than the inch or so of water we experienced.  Our house had damage but nothing compared to those other two houses.  We had to have a restoration crew come rip up all the carpet and dry the walls but their damage was so extensive that they have to cut the walls out from about midway up down to the floor in addition to the drying and carpet.  We just moved back in yesterday so we were out of our house about 8 days.  It may be months for these guys to get back into their houses.  There were two others that had flood damage on our street and several others in our neighborhood.  There was at least one other neighborhood in town that had flooding, too.  We have our new carpet but we are waiting on the baseboards so our furniture is still not back where it goes.  Our kitchen counters are COVERED in books and there is a lot of furniture in the dining room.  Our house had been turned upside down since we converted the playroom into a nursery and had were playing musical chairs with some bookcases.  During the day on the Sunday of the flood, we had just gotten Chad's newly recovered (giant) bookcase in the house and all the books jockeyed around.  We got the other bookcase in the boys room and got all of their books up off the floor (they had been on the floor of our dining room since March!) and the house was looking great.  I'm so thankful that none of those books were ruined since a good deal of them are books that were mine as a kid.  Also serendipitously, at the same time we moved all of the bookcases around, we also moved the stereo cabinet and brought back in the giant speakers that had been on the floor in the garage.  Water did come up about half way the garage floor and it was even less than an inch deep but it would have been plenty to destroy those speakers.  I'm so glad to be back in our house and I can't wait for it feel like home again after we get things back where they go!

Tomorrow Emeline will be 2 months old!  I can hardly believe it.  The whole last week seems like a blur and though she's been with me every day, I haven't gotten the time to sit and play with her as I should.  She is now at the point where she likes to lay on the floor and kick and squeal and grin.  She has her own theme song and smiles whenever we sing it.  It's a variation of a song from Phineas and Ferb and unless you are familiar with the show then it would probably be lost on you.

I wonder when normal will come again.  When it does, I'll let you know.  My new summer project is to petition the Board of Trustees of the town we live in to get on the agenda for the upcoming meeting with hopes of having them re-evaluate the drainage situation of our neighborhood.  Yes, that means I have to speak before the board, too!  My poly sci bones are tingly getting all involved in local government (though that isn't really my chosen area of interest).  I'll keep you updated on what transpires.