I'm back!

Sorry Bethany for not posting sooner. I am still trying to recover from our flood last week. I actually had this all typed up last night and lost the whole thing, how depressing! I went to bed and decided to try it again in the morning...

For those of you that don’t know our basement flooded last week and it really sucked! I remember hearing the sump pump kick on and not turn off and start to suck dry so I went down there and wiggled it around and got it to turn back off. A little bit later I heard this awful noise and I ran downstairs and noticed that the water was getting really high in the pit (I still have no idea what the noise was). I know that the pump should have kicked on by now so I tried really quick to get it to come on but no luck and at this point the water is spilling out of the hole and my shoes are getting wet. I ran upstairs grabbed the phone (got my floors dirty) and ran back down and called Deric. I tried getting the pump to work again and grabbed the pole and realized that it was vibrating and I accidentally knocked the fitting loose and it sprayed water all over the garment bag, woops! I popped it back in place, but kinda got this sick feeling… the pump WAS working and yet the water is still coming in. I looked out into the new basement and the water was 3 inches from pouring into this basement! I called Deric back… By this point I am a bit panicky and starting to cry, there was nothing I could do and there was no one there to help. Luckily the girls were asleep, but Brody was awake. I started to pick up all the stuff that had made it’s way back to the floor (some of the tools Deric had been using, the boxes of diapers, paper towels, and toilet paper I just bought from Sams, ect). I thought we were pretty flood safe since almost everything was in Rubbermaid boxes… think again! By this time the new basement was pouring into our old basement and Brody was crying, really crying, so I grabbed him and brought him back down with me. The water was already past my ankles, and some of my boxes were starting to float! Who knew they would do that! More crying, I felt so sick about it. 1/2 of our old house is down there, all the stuff we didn’t want to risk putting in the barn! Help was finally on the way; I have Brody in one hand I am stepping on a box to hold it down while trying to hoist another one on top to keep it from floating. A few things fell over and I dove to save them they were a little wet, but I thought they would be ok. The water is still coming in and is closing in on my calf. More crying, I felt so helpless things are now freely floating around the basement… a big box of mailer envelopes, the kitty litter box, misc things that I didn’t get off of the floor in time… More trying to save stuff, more crying, more wondering when is someone going to come help me. After what seemed like 2 years my parents and Deric’s dad showed up! Deric’s dad had on his fireman’s boots and went into the new basement to see if that pump was working and the water was up to his thigh, and he is a tall guy! Mom took Brody, and I went outside to help dad with his big pump. I asked mom to keep an eye on a box near the bottom of the stairs because it had my craft stuff in it and it was just starting to float and there were a few magazines on top I didn’t want to fall in. Lisa showed up somewhere in this timeframe and helped watch the kids and mom went downstairs. I’m not sure what happened because I was outside, but boxes were starting to flip over (Who knew they would do that too!) Mom is now bringing stuff up and Lisa is taking it and putting it in the bathroom and kitchen trying to keep it out of the way of the 4 kids! I was helping dad with the pump that didn’t want to prime and get started. I knew if it started the water would be gone fast, but the fact that it didn’t want to start and that the water is still pouring in had me worried. We finally got it to prime and water was shooting out of the hose. It felt so good to see the water rushing out, until I got back inside the house and I learned that the boxes were flipping, there went any joy I just felt. Mom took all the wet nasty clothes back to her house to wash for me (since my washer, dryer, furnace, and hot water heater all got flooded). I don’t know how many bags there were but there were a lot! I think she did at least 15 loads of laundry in the days following the flood. All of my baby clothes and blankets and stuff like that, Deric’s summer clothes, all of my rags, everything was wet. After 3 trips to moms house to get my stuff I finally have it all. I don’t have anywhere to put it yet, I am still in the process of washing out the Rubbermaids, so everything is thrown around my very small family room. At this moment I have 7 boxes waiting to be cleaned (2 HUGE ones, 3 big ones, 1 medium one, and 1 small one) and nowhere to sit! The kids have been playing with/in them since they are just all over the place, and I still have more in the basement that I need to clean. I have sorted through the clothes and have them ready to pack up, but the rest of my house has been a bit neglected, so I am still feeling a bit stressed. Hopefully today I will get all the boxes cleaned so I can once again find some kind of order and get back to my life.


At one point I had the camera downstairs with me, but I didn’t take any pictures, it was just too depressing…


Drying out my pictures… these were in a box that flipped… I was able to save most of them…


Kylie and Reygann playing in a box… I took the picture and then told them to never close anyone in the boxes… I wonder if the seriousness of that lost something since I was just taking their pictures.


Their boots were one of the things in the basement that made its way upstairs. They had fun playing with them, notice Reygann is finally dressed, but now Kylie isn’t!


The girls were playing with the paper towels, and I’m guessing that they wanted Brody to play too?