Flood of '09

So here's the latest for those that did not hear about the torrential rain we had in our area last Friday night...

It started raining Friday evening. Lightning. Thunder. The whole works. It got progressively worse in a short amount of time. Before we knew it, there was a river running between our house and the neighbors. Greg was next door at the time helping a friend install some flooring. He called and frantically said to check the basement. I had just been down there 30 seconds before he called. When I returned, there was water pouring down the basement windows. My neighbor Jen was over at the time, and we quick grabbed some towels to stuff the windows with. Like that was going to help. Come on. It was like the ship was sinking. There's nothing you can do to stop it, so you start collecting as much stuff as you can to get it to a dry spot. Thankfully, our basement is unfinished. We have some old couches and carpet that we put down there for a temporary hang out spot.

Greg and Mark (neighbor) came back to lift the couches on rubber totes. That worked. For a while. Until the water was so high, the totes started to float. When we checked on them again, all 3 couches had fallen off and were halfway under water. In the meantime, Greg and Mark went around outside trying to "save the neighborhood". People with finished basements, and tons of keepsakes were helplessly under water. Kids down the street were rowing in canoes in the middle of the street while cars were barely able to drive to their homes for fear of floating away.

Our house has NEVER flooded since it was built. Our neighborhood has been flooded before, but never water in OUR basement. We moved in less than a year ago, and it floods. Go figure.

Anyway, it was a wild experience....here's some pics for the record.

front doorstep (8 inches away from the water coming through the front door..yikes!)

We propped up the baby furniture on anything we could find. The garage only had about 3 in.
The sunroom with 2-3 inches, but everything got cleared out before the water crept in...

The basement with 18 inches! This is after those darn couches fell off the totes. At least we tried to save them....oh well.

Our backyard completely underwater...

And proof that we did indeed survive...

That's right...22 inches!

We are drying out with fans and dehumidifiers that have been running nonstop since Friday. The water table under our house must still be high though because our basement still has water seeping through the walls. With yesterday and today being 90 deg and HOT and HUMID, it has not really help get the mucky mildew smell out either! But, I'm thankful we saved what we could, when so many others had to strip their basements down to the studs following this "100 year flood".