Floods

Well, for those of you who aren't in this area and haven't seen the news, I've been in the midst of some major flooding this last week. Lots of folks are asking how it's going, if we flooded, etc so I thought I'd just write one update and hope that answers the questions.

A) Our house is not flooded, or anywhere near flooding
B) My parent's house was in the flood plain, but missed the waters by maybe 50 feet.
C) My parents are not in the country, so we (my sister, my husband and I) have been responsible to get it cleaned up and taken care of.
D) The last week went something as follows:

Mon-Tues: My cousins were visiting. We had a grand time.

Wed- Parents leave for trip, cousins leave, sister leaves for a day trip to Chicago. We were worried a little about the flood, but the predictions kept it pretty far away from the house. By night time, they'd put out a map of the expanded evacuation area, and my parent's house was in it. We put bags over the drain and pulled stuff off the basement floor just in case.

Thurs - Watching the flood levels very closely. The edge of the water is two or three blocks away. It's raining and storming all day. Roads are beginning to close. Including major highways and roads through town. Water shortage began in town. Rain still pouring. Daniel and a friend set up emergency communication tower for the police, who had relocated because of the flood. I attempted to get more sandbags to use at the house, but got stuck in traffic as they were shutting down so many roads due to flash floods and the real flood.
In the evening, we got a new surprise. They'd predicted a 24 ft. crest, but they changed that to 32 ft. Daniel and a group of random others went to the house and hauled up as much as they could from the basement before curfew.

Friday - Took showers at the farm to conserve water in town. Daniel went in and discovered 3 ft of water in the basement. They got to work making pumps, but there was no power so we had to have generators. I stayed at the farm with my father-in-law to wait till he had the RV's generator fixed and his pumps ready to go. What normally takes twenty minutes to drive into town took more than an hour because traffic was backed up on all of the highways and the only exit roads. It took most of the day to get the pumps going, and I didn't really do much. Some of them worked sometimes, but then my father-in-law went and got two submerging pumps and they worked really well.

Saturday - Finished pumping the water out of the basement and started using squeegees to get the rest of them.

Sunday - Took a little bit of a break, but still went and did some clean-up. Set up fans to dry things.

Monday - My wonderful husband worked for several hours, visiting different offices and officials to get the power turned back on to the house.

Tuesday - Some of my sister's friends and some random Mormons in the neighborhood bleached and cleaned a lot in the basement.

Today - Sorted through all of the things that had gotten wet. Set them on the road side or in the garage to see what the parents wanted to keep. It's mostly all done now.

Lots of people offered to help and get stuff done. Tons of folks from church put in time helping moving things, mostly my sister's friends. They did an amazing job helping out with everything. Now we'll mostly have to let my parents figure the rest out, I think. When I called the insurance guy, he said they weren't covered for ground water, but I feel like that was inconclusive. So... yeah. I guess that's about all. In town, they've moved the barricades down as they check blocks for the house safety. It was at the end of our block, but today it's seven blocks further down. People are emptying their houses, and it's a sad sight. But there is some strange hope in starting over, as well. At least I think so. Anyway, that's that update. I'll write more about other more interesting things some time soon.