The Aftermath of the Flood

"It's Raining; It's Pouring; The Old Man Is Snoring"

Tuesday morning saw the largest single day rainfall in over a 100 years. In a matter of minutes the streets became impassable and within a matter of hours houses found themselves taking on water. It lead many to wonder what we have done wrong. Since April of 2008, my city had been hit with an earthquake (4/08), a windstorm caused by Hurricane Ike (9/08), an Ice Storm (2/09) and now a flash flood (8/09). However, my family had survived many of these disasters, until now.

Our basement took on water, about 9 inches give or take. Talking with neighbors, we were lucky. The neighbor across the street took on 2 feet. Neighbors down the road took on 3 1/2 feet and were stuck in their house as their front lawn became part of the newly developed lake. To make matters worse, no sooner had the water receded, several hours later, than another neighbor's house caught on fire. The Public Library and nearest hospital both took on water, with damages conservatively estimated to date at 2 million dollars. The major university found itself under water with 7 buildings being flooded out.

You never really realize how people use different parts of their houses. The basement is used so differently by so many different people. Our basement was our laundry room, but we also kept our books from college and the baby accessories our son had out grown, all of it gone now. Our immediate neighbor used his as an apartment, couches and chairs all gone. Another neighbor, across the street used hers to store some of her collectibles, heirlooms and the things belonging to her two youngest, one who just got out of the Marines, and moved in with his soon to be in-laws, and the other son who is currently serving with the Marines in Afghanistan, all lost in the flood. That was our Tuesday.

On Wednesday, after the initial clean up, the mayor made his announcement about what the benchmarks are for the city in order to receive Federal funding by FEMA and for the President to declare a State of Emergency. All of which falls on the city since the state was not effected by the rain storm. The head of the city health department came on and told people to throw out any clothes that got wet since the flood water was from the sewers and were contaminated. A good majority of our clothes were wet, with a few exceptions. Throwing out all our clothes was and is not a possibility based on our income. The original hopes were to save at least half, but after putting on the rubber gloves and ringing out the clothes, one at a time, by hand, and seeing the nasty yellow film that stained the gloves, we knew that wasn't going to happen. We now are just going to try and save the clothes we can. We threw out several large bags of clothes while washing some that will never be the same again.

We realized what it was we had to do and started calling friends and family to see if they could help us in any way. Provide us with hand me down linens, towels and clothing. My mother in-law is taking up a collection and is coming down this weekend, since we live near 2 of her other daughters and we were all effected by the flood, to help clean up. That was our Wednesday.

It's now Thursday. I'm back to work, having taken the last few days off, I couldn't get out of my duties today. It's an all day work day, so cleaning up is out of the question. I have, however, started trying to recover by asking for help from fellow members of the fraternity I was in while in college. And much to my surprise, within a matter of hours I have already received emails from members, even ones I have never met, who want to help us out by donating clothes.

My weekend, starting Friday, will consist of cleaning up. Tomorrow, I'm taking off and will hopefully finish up my basement. From there we will descend on other houses that need help to finish up their clean up hopefully before the mold really sets in. That is my weekend plans.

It takes losing all these things that make you realize what you have and how special it truly is. While we have lost a great majority of our clothes, bedding and what not, we still have a home, we still have our health, and we still have each other, and that is all that matters. And with the help of our friends and family, we will make it out of this. Yes, some of the things that were lost can't be replaced, and that is awful. But at the end of the day, they were just paper and materials.

However, if the President wants to see an economic stimulus, give those effected by this flood $4,500 that you would give the "Cash for Clunkers". If Congress can pull $2 billion out of the air to allow "Cash for Clunkers" to keep going, they should be able to pull a few hundred thousand for families that may not have lost their houses, although some have, but for families who have lost clothes and appliances.

But in the end, they are just materials goods. If the government wants to give me money, I'll take it. If friends and family do, we'll take it. At the end of the day, I am not my khakis.