Here is todays view of the driveway. A huge improvement from yesterday. When I pulled in the driveway this morning our neighbor Aaron was out on a tractor pushing all the mud off of the driveway and trying to get as much out of the way as possible. I can't believe all that him and his wife have done to help us out and we don't even know each other well....yet.
Since we don't have a truck anymore Jason had to use the Explorer to get his trailer backed up to a high spot close to the attached garage. Water was flowing underneath it but never got high enough to do damage. I'm so thankful for that. If he wouldn't have moved it from where it was it would now probably be out in the middle of the yard.
Inside the attached garage. I couldn't believe the smell when we first looked in here. It was awful. It almost seems like the mud multiplies. It is terrible and sticks to everything.
This is the view looking outside of the attached garage towards the driveway.
This is the mud besides the attached garage. You sink over your ankles or deeper in this area.
The front sidewalk.
The mud is everywhere. It is going to be a constant nightmare for a very long time. It is going to get tracked everywhere. I also worry about the dogs. If we get to go back I'm not sure what we can do with them. They will sink in the mud. There is literally no place they can go off of the pavement. Its dirty and stinky. Right now their dog kennel is completely filled with about a foot of mud.
The detached garage door. You can see how deep the mud was where it was scraped away here. There are just blobs of it everywhere.
Here is a pic of some of our stuff in the detached garage. You can see how much water and mud is still there after already trying to sweep some out.
This is outside the detached garage.
Another view of the destruction.
The detached garage as the clean up began and things were taken out.
An example of the mud again. Obviously it looks terrible in the thicker spots but don't let the grass fool you. You walk anywhere off pavement you sink.
These are pics taken off the back porch. Yes, the house is that close to the river. There are several trees missing and quite a lot of land. The water was actually over most of the fence that you see which puts the depth of the water in perspective. When I came to rescue the dogs and looked out that side of the house it was overwhelming. I will never get those images, sounds, and smells out of my mind. There is even more mud in this part of the yard. Also there is a log in the fence.
Here is a small sample of some of my pictures we tried to save from my photo albums.
Jason couldn't miss work today but we were blessed to have so many of our friends come and try to help start the clean up process. Every day brings more and more sadness to me. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around losing the big items but the sentimental ones send me over the brink. I already started this ordeal with a cold. The lack of sleep and stress just compile each day. I'm trying really hard to keep it together. We have already lost both girls baby books and all of their keepsakes from that time, my great-great-grandmothers quilt, and several other family heirlooms were beyond saving. So far I have already lost two totes of pictures. Another tote of albums were found today along with a tote of loose pics and sentimental things and a whole tote of framed photos. I worked for almost 8 hours just on the pictures. Along the way I had several friends join me on this job and I can't begin to say thank you or repay you. I think seeing your things floating in brown water and thick mud is something you should never experience.
When we got there we reset the breakers and tried to get everything working. We knew we couldn't turn on the forced air since water and mud was up to the insulation under the house. Our friend Jesse tried to get the propane stove working. We finally discovered there was no propane. To make a long story short Jesse is our hero. He works for Cenex and was able to get them to deliver today. Usually there is a long wait. He got it going after that and that helped a lot in trying to dry the pictures out. The house had gotten very cold. After 6 hours the house temp only went up 10 degrees. We have to keep the stove on because you can feel the dampness and cold everywhere. It's too cold too stay in the house so we have to stay in a hotel. As we all worked on the photos in different rooms we all felt like the floors feel damp. Everyone's fingers and feet were freezing too. I don't know if that is just from the house being so cold or if water is actually wicking through the floor. Everything is still up as much as it can be at this point so I guess we just have to wait and see. I hope the house doesn't start to get damage too or have mold start to grow.
One by one people left. Jason showed up after work and we did a few more things. It has been dark each night by the time Jason gets here so it has been really frustrating to him since he wants to get stuff accomplished. I have been staying in Vader with the girls but decided to stay in the hotel with Jason tonight. We hadn't really seen much of each other since Tuesday and we needed to talk and start coming up with a plan. By the time we got to the room we were even too exhausted to talk so we went to bed and decided to start again tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment