just a disclaimer, this is a crazy long post...
I need a to catch a breath.
A nice long breath. Suck in, blow out.
And again.
We have been through the ringer.
Where to begin?
I guess, with the rain. and rain. and rain. I think it rained straight for 5 days, and hard! Not just a little shower, but amazon rainforest downpour, and it didn't let up.
The morning of sept 7th, J was SO excited. It was her first day of preschool- she couldn't wait.
She jumped on the tramp for about 5 minutes when it wasn't raining.
Little B was on the floors, playing in his favorite tupperware drawer
We got J all ready for school. She had been saving this frog outfit to wear since we bought it. She kept pulling it out and showing me, and then she would say, 'but this is for school.' We got her lunch all packed and ready to go.
We dropped her off and school. She darted in, found her cubby and was off, I had to ask for a hug, which she excitedly gave me, and then she was back to being busy at school.
What a sweetie! She is so grown up.
It was a pretty calm morning, other than the pelting rain. I had a RS meeting at noon, so I was making and letting rolls rise, playing with B, and just holding little C. It was just nice and relaxing.
I got a call about 10:30 saying the school was worried about the rising river water and that the kids would get out of school 2 hours early. I thought, oh, J is going to be so disappointed! She was has been waiting for forever for this day! Continued with baking rolls and getting ready for our meeting.
I got to my meeting, we were just eating a delicious lunch and starting to discuss future plans and I got another call from the school again, saying that the waters were rising and they were bussing kids home as soon as the busses could get to them. We basically stopped what we were doing and I said I needed to get a home to make sure I was there when K got off the bus. So I left, I went down to his bus stop and waited, in the pelting rain, but we were all in the car and nice and dry. After a little bit, his bus came, and he got in the car, all excited. Excited that it was a short day and excited because, he informed me, that the canal behind our house was just barely overflowing. He talked me in to going to look at it. It was kinda neat to see, it had barely started coming over the top of the wall (it's usually about 6 inches deep, and the walls are about 8 feet tall). We then went to pick up J from preschool, early. We got there, picked her and a little boy in our ward up, and left. K wanted to show J the canal, so we drove back down that way just to have a look. When we got there, the water was half way up my back grass. C's car was sitting in water. I thought 'this is crazy'. I went to go drop off the little boy that was with us (about 5 minutes away), and as I did, I looked in my rear view mirror and saw that C's car was surrounded by water, and touching the bottom of his car. I realized I needed to get it out of the water. I waded through calf deep water to get there. I had to floor it, to get it out, it was SO deep. I was starting to get a little worried, and I saw my older neighbor outside. I hollered to him if he and his wife were okay. He said, 'We are going UNDER! Get your car out of your garage!' He then had me come and look up the railroad tracks, there was literally a wall of water coming toward us. I must say, after that, I was in panic mode. I went to get our car out of our garage, which slants downward and there was water already half way up into our garage. I started frantically trying to get ahold of C at work. I floored our car to get it out of the deep water and parked it on the hill. I RAN into the house and realized the water had completely covered our back yard and was 4 inches from coming onto our back porch. I was crazily grabbing things I knew we would need for C, and a change of clothes for each of the kids. I was still trying to get ahold of C who was in surgery. He finally answered, when I heard his voice, I started to cry. I was trying to tell him the house was going to flood, he said he would see if he could get home. I grabbed our birth certificates and social security cards, what I thought was our external hard drive (later realized it was our internet box-crap!) the few clothes I could for the kids, the 72 hour kits (thank you church for stressing having them!!!!), and jumped into the car (which was now surrounded by water) with all the kids who had been waiting in there for 15 minutes. I took the kids up to a friends house, who lived on higher ground :), and headed back home when I pulled up, this is what I saw.
In less than an hour, water had made its way down and was surrounding both our front and back doors. C had beat me there. I went in through the front door, and the waters were coming in both the front and back doors or our house. The water had filled our basement in a matter of minutes, C said it sounded like a rushing river coming in. We grabbed our photo albums off of the bottom shelf of our book case and a few other things, when we got back downstairs, there was already 3 inches of water on the floor. We left. As we pulled away, I kept thinking of all the things that were sitting in the water; furniture, all our electronics, cooking supplies, appliances, my grandmothers piano, table, hutch, baby stuff, treadmill, and I remembered all of the stuff I had saved from the kids past years in school was sitting on the bottom shelf of our book case, we had no time and no warning. It was the most gut-wrenching feeling. I did think something was funny in the above pic, the guy walking in the picture was handicapped and he stopped and told me 'i like to walk in the water', (but I guess he doesn't like his head to get wet, hence, the umbrella-it made me smile)
Where the street was, ran a river
So sad! What made it worse, was when a car would drive by, it would make waves and put even more water into our house
I heard our house was the poster child for the flood
On Thursday when we made it back home, this is what we found. A layer of mud/sewage throughout the house. The picture below makes me so mad! I had just bought that cabinet thing with the linen boxes at costco to store our shoes (it was a great find! and a solution to a shoe mess that had plagued me since we moved it), and it was completely destroyed when it dried. (mold and a big mess!) Costco doesn't have them anymore, I am SO sad!
Just looking at this picture I can smell the horrendous smell that came with all this gross mud/sewage
We went down to look at the river on thursday night and found this! The Susquehanna usually runs low enough that it can be walked across (in most parts). The banks are a good 20 feet tall, the water had crested the banks and had crossed over a street.
It was so close to covering the bridge.
It had to make it up a hill, and then it would have been bad for so many people, including us.
my favorite house, look how close the water was (it got a lot closer, and probably surrounded it, this was earlier in the day)
There was also a levy not too far from our house that was holding the water back, just north of us, we went and saw it. The water was already seeping through.
As we went to bed on Thursday night, i was scared of what the morning would bring. We had already flooded because of the canal-those waters had receded, but now we had to worry about the river. My neighbor said that if the levy broke, we would be under 6 feet of water on the main floor. My heart was SO sad!
When morning finally came on Friday, I was terrified to see what had happened. I made my way down to our house to find nothing but dry ground (or semi-dry ground). Not only had the levy held, but the rivers waters had receded as well-huge miracle.
On to the cleanup ( I think this is what is going to take forever)!
Scrubbing of the floors, and scrubbing of the floors-i think in all, about 10 times, the floors were cleaned. We cleaned baseboards, walls, and threw out a ton!
I like this picture. Just the blue skies, and everyone looking at the 6 feet of muddy water in our basement and wondering how to get it out.
this was our garage, covered in mud/sewage, what I now refer to as 'sludge'. it doesn't just wipe off, it's like clay. oh how i hate it
the upper part of our garage
Lowering a pump into the water and realizing that it would take about 5 days to pump it all out
until the firetruck came and because I had called 911, they pumped it out in a couple hours!
We lost a lot in the flood, but most of it can be replaced. BUT miraculously, all of our appliances still work. I just kept thinking, most important, my family was kept safe during all of this! We moved in with some friends and stayed there for two weeks. It has been a long process of cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. Our house is still disheveled as we try to replace floors, and every time i pick something up that I thought was clean, I find more mud. I guess it's a long slow process. It will be a long time before we are back to 'normal'
If I NEVER smell pine-sol again, it will be TOO soon!
The next pictures are of a town that is about 10 minutes from us, they were hit SO hard, it breaks my heart, and makes me feel like what we went through is SO minimal compared to their suffering
This is a piece of the freeway that had been moved and torn up by the massive flooding river
Along the highway, you can see the yield sign, and the mud/river was that high
Here are the local fairgrounds, they were under 12 feet of water. (The fair was scheduled for a week away, it's the first time in 155 years that it has had to be cancelled.)
These next pictures break my heart! We are so lucky to still have a home, so many lost their homes entirely, all thats left is a hole where their home used to be.
How devastating!
There are piles of stuff all along the side of the road, houses displaced, or just completely washed away. It had been so humbling to see the power of mother nature.
One thing that I purposely left out, but wanted to end with was the kindness of SO many. It was completely overwhelming. The acts of kindness came from people we knew and complete strangers. My heart has been so full because of the compassion that we received from so many. I will try to remember as many as possible.
The first night-wednesday night, my friend took all 5 of my kids, along with her 5, and watched them so we could try to get some stuff up off the floors. A sweet girl in our ward made dinner for both families. We then slept the night at their house (while their basement was getting wet from so much ground water). Thursday, multiple people watched all 5 of my kids while I took care of stuff at the house, another friend from our ward came into our house and helped me throw away and clean things up a little. I think that was the hardest day, especially when I saw all my kids school work soaking wet and covered in the sludge. It was too much! (I was gone for about 8 hours). One girl did my laundry (all 6 basketfuls), watched my younger 3 kids, and made us dinner. A friend of a friend of someone in the ward bought mcdonalds for all the kids and brought it over. We also had a neighbor of someone in our ward, who's sister was going out of town on vacation, offer us their house for a month. So generous. We moved into some friends in our ward, in their basement, (and stayed there for 2 weeks), they have 4 kids. On Friday, another girl watched my kids. G's old Kindergarten teacher took G and J to her farm to play for the day while I was down at our house. While I was at the house, scrubbing, throwing things away, and cleaning, a car slowly passed. She stopped and said, 'we wanted to help and didn't know what to do, so we made cookies'. She gave us a handful of cookies. So many people passing the house would pop their heads in and offer their best wishes and express their sadness for us-even our nice mailman. I had been at the house for about 9 hours that day. On Saturday, I had two friends watch my kids, one in the am, on in the pm, while I was down at the house. I was gone for 9 hours. My friend sent us home with cupcakes (two of which I gobbled up on the way home). I was physically and emotionally drained and starving. It was 7 o'clock when we got home. I kept thinking, what are we going to eat for dinner, knowing I was too tired to cook, and too late to go anywhere to eat out, and on the doorstep was a complete dinner; with salad, bread and dessert. A girl in our ward and G's kindergarten teacher from last year had left it. It brought me to tears. The next day was church, no more cleaning, no more throwing out our belongings. I went to church feeling nothing but love for so many who offered their kindness to our family without hesitation. We had so many offers for babysitting, laundry, clean-up, dinner, and texts to see what people could do. I felt an outpouring of love from our ward family and our community. I remember a quote from one of the twelve apostles that says 'God does love us and watches over us, but it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore it is vital to serve on another'. Through this entire ordeal-as difficult as it has been, I have been able to feel and see the hand and love of the Lord in my life. It has come from friends, neighbors and strangers. It has come in meals and babysitting. It has come in spending time with my kids. It has come in a dry place to stay. It has come from toys and clothes. It has come from offers to help. It has come from many prayers. It has come in a myriad of miracles. My family has been strengthened.
My faith and testimony have been strengthened. My love for my Heavenly Father has been strengthened.
From great trials come great blessings.
ps i'm not done, i need to do a post about the many miracles we have witnessed. for another day.
