Conclusion of the flood, a few days in one...

Thursday: The water is receeding. Perhaps today we can go to the house. Perhaps today they'll restore power to the house. We've reached the end of the rope at G & Ps house. Not that we're not welcome to stay as long as necessary, but nerves are frazzled.



After a hearty breakfast MM packs up and heads to the house. His intent is to check on the house and encamp at the house. P sold us his awesome generator to run the fridge and a few lights, perhaps a fan. He was able to boat to the house and begin figuring out what needs to be done. Everything was rank. Power wasn't restored until late Thursday afternoon. MM spent the night alone in our stinky house. We spent the afternoon letting the kids unwind in water they could play in. Thank God for DFs who drop everything for you!



Rant: The county required new septic systems to be built above the water table mark in the ground. Down here, that's ground level. Every septic system must be above ground level. It makes sense until you think about it: Why is the water mark at ground level? Gee, I don't know... flooding! I'm sure there's a logical explanation, without a true water table mark because of the flooding, how do they know where the normal mark is? Yet, new houses built here are required to build up a mound into which they insert the septic system. End Rant.



I spent one more night at G & Ps so I could go to a homeschool meeting in town. I woke the next morning to begin repacking our van with all the important stuff that we'd extracted from home just five days earlier. It's amazing what you can fit in a van. Just before lunch the boys and I were headed home - of course we had to stop at the store for a couple things and by our DFs to get a few things from the freezer. So it was early afternoon when we arrived.

The water had receeded from the better part of our yard and out of the basement. Not long after I arrived MM wanted some pictures taken of the mess.

Sidenote: If you are in a purge mode (keep, give away, throw away kind) if you don't know what to do, go ahead and toss it. We had tried to purge before the flood and didn't know what to do with all that you see here. Now we had no choice about it, those things were trashed and headed to the dump.

The stench of our yard and neighborhood was very distinct. It's the kind of smell you'll never forget. I'm amazed that I didn't toss my cookies... The boys haven't a place to play, so "Up to the house and stay there." was the command of the day.

Now our lives are filled with cleaning up. A few DFs were able to make their way all the way out here to help with the clean up. All in all we hauled off 5 truck loads of junk from our house. I sure wish we'd done it before the flood. Our basement is no longer storage area but a play area for our boys. They love it!


I'll post pictures later.