I'll admit I'm pretty jumpy right now. Yesterday while I was getting ready for the day, I missed two calls from different members of my family. I immediately panicked, thinking it HAD to be more bad news. I listened to my messages with a sinking heart, praying that God would get us through whatever I was about to hear. It turns out, it was nothing, just two loving family members thinking of me and offering support on Mother's Day morning. It really caused me pause as I took the temperature of where I was emotionally.
The flood, which started with such crazy hope and support, has left a bad taste in our mouths with the loss of Oscar. We understand it was just an accident and that these things happen and that it was just horrible timing, but for now, everything that reminds of of the flood and the change in our living status, also reminds of of our sweet, perfect family member who we rescued and in turn rescued us. Oscar was a balm to our family and the joy of arriving home each day. He was so unique with his personality and golden eyes, he stopped passers-by left and right as they wanted to meet him or ask about him. He loved us with abandon and was a constant companion. The very idea that we won't see him again is so overwhelming that I am still convinced he's just away, at a different house or something. It's easy to tell myself that as we're living in a different place, it's easy to imagine that when we get "home" from this trip, he'll be there waiting to greet us.
Then I remember that our home is stripped and the walls come out on Tuesday. I remember that the process to rebuild will take 3-4 months and that is after permits are received, which we've been told could take months in itself.
Yesterday, David and I were "out" hoping that being surrounded by people would stop the nearly constant flow of tears. He asked me what the "goals" were for the afternoon and I fell apart. I don't even feel like the same person. Is it possible to have tragedy like this shift your personality? The idea that I could process through a list and feel that I'd accomplished something in this afternoon was so foreign I was overwhelmed again at how our lives have changed in 8 days.
Friday evening, before the flood, I sat in the grass with Oscar and Molly for about an hour before David got home from work. They were so glad to see me and were running all over the yard. The grass was tall and Molly was jumping all around to catch up with Oscar. He would come by and say hi to me, lay down for a minute, and then when Molly would come tackle him again, he'd get up and run off with her close behind. David got home and Oscar immediately ran to the car, waiting for the first glimpse of his Daddy. They played and we talked outside for a few minutes and then I went inside to work on the computer and David stayed out to mow the lawn. He'd just purchased a hammock stand for me as my new favorite thing to do was just be outside in our large backyard with our dogs. They were so true to their nature in those moments, totally living in the moment, being distracted by every smell and sound, finding rest in simply "being." I had started a new habit of spending my first few moments in the evening with them, learning how to let go of the day and just breathe.
Saturday we ran a few errands, nothing big at all, just a few things from a few places. It was raining hard and I was glad to get home. When we were in the house and all the stuff was brought in from the car, we noticed that the flood waters were rising up the neighbors yard. David went to offer his help as Mike was moving lawn equipment and from that moment on our lives have been totally different. Who knew that standing in our bedroom, pushing aside the red curtain that my mom hand made for me years ago, that our lives were on the edge of change, a shift so large there would be no "recovering" just rebuilding? How could we know that we were about to experience the "before and after" moment that would define our married lives and our stories to our children?
Friday was a day of joy and tragedy we never expected. It was also the 2nd anniversary of our very first date. This week, David and I have shifted even closer to each other than before. This process feels more like two becoming one than did our wedding. It has done more to forge an unbreakable bond than any fun memory, or romantic moment. In the midst of the storm and loss, we are even more thankful to have each other and aware that every day together is precious, and no matter where we find shelter he is my home.
~ Hannah
Monday, May 10, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
Oscar
Our sweet Oscar was struck by a car today and did not make it. Please do not call about him, as we would prefer not to talk about it over and over. Just wanted our friends to know. Obviously, we are crushed. There are no words. But we are thankful for our families and friends, and now more than ever we will need people to lean on.
-David
-David
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Thursday...three homes in a week
Today felt good. This is a lot like a roller coaster, really really bad news followed by really really good news. Tears of overwhelm and sadness followed by tears of gratefulness. Today felt like a step forward as we had the first contractor come out and take a look. He was very positive and talked us through what would need to happen in each room. He thought it would take about 3 months once work could start, but probably a month before work could start. That was huge for us, who before today, have had no idea whatsoever how long this could take.
We also had a huge step forward when Hands on Nashville came to the door and offered to help. They carried out the furniture and the carpet in the front bedroom. We're just left with the appliances and carpet in the back of the house.
I hit my personal wall today while we were eating lunch around 2:30. The people in the booth behind us were talking about all the "$%#^" on the side of the road and how the people who were flooded are ruining the city for the rest of them. They spent their morning, not helping like the MANY people who took time from their jobs to do the dirty work that was needed, driving around gawking at those who were in trouble and their lunch making fun of them. I got VERY fired up and David said he would talk to them (possibly, not wanting to unleash my total emotional drama on them.) I ended up just getting up and leaving in tears while David finished talking to them. Not because of David :) just because I couldn't take any more before it spilled over.
I was able to get a break this afternoon and tonight is spent doing as many loads of laundry as possible. Turns out even our clean dry clothes have a stank! that I can't handle. Thank you again to Grey and Shannon who are loaning us their home while they are out of town.
The house is almost entirely empty, but the basement hasn't been touched. I am debating between trying to get down there and see if ANYTHING is salvageable from our childhoods after 48+ hours under water and just walking away without fresh memories of all that we lost. Leaning toward walking away. I don't really remember all that is down there and that may be a better way to end this.
~ Hannah
We also had a huge step forward when Hands on Nashville came to the door and offered to help. They carried out the furniture and the carpet in the front bedroom. We're just left with the appliances and carpet in the back of the house.
I hit my personal wall today while we were eating lunch around 2:30. The people in the booth behind us were talking about all the "$%#^" on the side of the road and how the people who were flooded are ruining the city for the rest of them. They spent their morning, not helping like the MANY people who took time from their jobs to do the dirty work that was needed, driving around gawking at those who were in trouble and their lunch making fun of them. I got VERY fired up and David said he would talk to them (possibly, not wanting to unleash my total emotional drama on them.) I ended up just getting up and leaving in tears while David finished talking to them. Not because of David :) just because I couldn't take any more before it spilled over.
I was able to get a break this afternoon and tonight is spent doing as many loads of laundry as possible. Turns out even our clean dry clothes have a stank! that I can't handle. Thank you again to Grey and Shannon who are loaning us their home while they are out of town.
The house is almost entirely empty, but the basement hasn't been touched. I am debating between trying to get down there and see if ANYTHING is salvageable from our childhoods after 48+ hours under water and just walking away without fresh memories of all that we lost. Leaning toward walking away. I don't really remember all that is down there and that may be a better way to end this.
~ Hannah
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
48 Hours Later
Well, it's been two days since the Great Nashville Flood did its best to annihilate our home and the homes of thousands of other Tennesseans. We've been staying with Mike and Lyn Vogt and their family in Brentwood. Mike and Lyn did our pre-marital counseling, and Hannah and Lyn have been close for years. They have a nice, big house, and we have our own bathroom here, which is very, very helpful. :-) Anyway, to give a longer version of the ordeal (for those who are interested), I'll break it down into increments:
SATURDAY 5/1
Hannah and I had a great first part of the day Saturday, through mid-afternoon. It was raining heavily, but we ran errands at Target, Petsmart, etc. Had a pretty good time, and got home around mid-afternoon. When we got home, we saw that the water had started coming pretty far up the neighbors back yard (which sits lower than ours). Hannah saw out the window that Mike, our neighbor, was trying to move all of his big items from his lowest-sitting carport, where he stored riding mowers, trailers, etc., to higher ground. (On our cul-de-sac, everyone's front yards are several feet higher than their back yards.) She said I should go help him, and she was right, so I put on some rough clothes and headed over. Of course, he had literally just finished moving things to higher ground and didn't need any help. Told him I was sorry, we'd been out running errands, or I would've helped. He said no problem, "This stuff is old hat to me. Do it every time it floods. Been in my garage a bunch of times. (Pointing at our basement) Been in that basement, too." That was news. [Side note: We'd asked before buying our house whether they'd ever had flooding issues with their basement. The agent said they had not. FYI, that's what we call a lie. :-) So, Mike had unintentionally provided some verrrry surprising and interesting info... An honest answer to our pre-purchase question, and we wouldn't have bought that house, but that's an issue for another day...]
I went back into our house after talking with Mike, and I told Hannah what he'd said. "Hmmm...but we were told it had never flooded!" "I know..." So, Hannah asked me to look and make sure the basement was okay, even though the water wasn't up to our house at that point. (Remember, this was Saturday; Sunday was the big one.) Turns out, we had some water seeping in and pooling at the bottom of our basement steps. Great. So, I went to setting up our new wet/dry vac that my folks had given us, and Hannah went to making phone calls. About the time I was working on my third six-gallon load in the wet vac, Hannah told me that Grey and Shannon were on their way to help. By that time, the water had started coming into the basement from more places and directions. By the time Grey and Shannon could get there, which was quite soon after Hannah called them, the water was several inches deep in our basement. Hannah and I had started moving everything we could to shelves in one of our basement rooms, and Grey and Shannon helped make short work of finishing that job. At the point, water was coming through cinder blocks, under the exterior basement door (it opens into the back yard, under the deck), seeping through the window, etc. Fast forward a bit. Grey had suggested that we put some wood down and lift our chest freezer onto it, so that maybe it wouldn't take on water and short out. So, we did that. I'm glad my friends are faster thinkers than I am... Grey had also called Patrick to come over with cinder blocks, materials, etc. that he may have. So, Patrick and Betsy arrived a few minutes later. Shannon went and bought some tarps, and Grey and I used Patrick's cinder blocks and bricks to try and barricade the basement door and window. The water had receded a bit at this point, which made that job easier. Patrick and I then went to Lowe's to try to buy a pump to clear out the basement. They were sold out. (Shocker.) Got on the horn, and all the area stores were sold out. Great. So, Patrick found a couple of items to help Grey try and figure out a way to convert our wet/dry vac into a pumping device. Plans A through D were developed, but in the end, some buckets were used. Of course, it quickly became clear that that approach was futile, so we told everyone to call it a day.
Our friends had, with zero notice, dropped everything they were doing that day and come over to help. The water won the day, but not due to lack of trying on our friends' parts. They busted their tails to try and take care of us, and not one of them complained a single time. God has blessed us with amazing friends, no?
SUNDAY MORNING 5/2
Sunday morning, we had decided not to go to church after our ordeal on Saturday. As it turns out, that made all the difference, and the minor basement flooding on Saturday ended up being a huge blessing. (For example, if we had gone to church on Sunday morning, our beloved dogs, Oscar and Mollie, almost definitely would have drowned in the kitchen, and we also would not have been able to secure any of our belongings, but I digress...) Hannah took Mollie out to use the bathroom, and when she came back in, she said the basement water had all gone away. I looked, and (asif she would have been confused about that) it somehow had all gone away. We assume it seeped away overnight through cracks in the basement floor. So, we relaxed a little and watched a couple of episodes of King of Queens. Then the rain started back. We knew the ground had become saturated on Saturday, so it was going to basically function like concrete instead of dirt (i.e., it would no longer be somewhat absorbent) if the water started rising again. Sure enough, we saw it creeping back up Mike's back yard, toward the bank that goes down several feet from our property to his. Then it started coming up the bank. So, we started paying close attention and monitoring the water line every couple of minutes. We assumed it would be back in the basement, so we didn't worry about that, since a fair bit of damage had already been done on Saturday. Before we knew it, our back yard was resembling a lake, and the basement had about a foot of water in it. Around that time, just before 9:00 AM, Hannah had pointed out that we'd only cut some of the breakers Saturday night, and other, higher outlets were about to be affected in the basement. Then, we heard it. The big windown in the basement gave way, and water started rushing in and forming rapids at the bottom of the basement steps. Naturally, water started rising in the basement at a rapid clip, since there was practically no resistance anymore. We started talking about evacuating, and how does that look? Really, who has to evacuate their home? Who's ready for that? Then the water starting climbing the basement steps by about one step per eight or ten minutes. Mind you, we had four for five remaining steps. We started scurrying. I moved her car up the street to somewhat higher ground, and I whipped mine in by the door. At this point, water had fully engulfed the back yard and was doing its best to reach our front yard and driveway (which sit up higher). I was sprinting around, the neighbors were all doing the same, and, simply stated, everyone was trying to remain composed despite the fact that everyone was freaking out. It was clear that the water was going to keep rising, and that we all had to get out. Hannah was crying and having trouble breathing. I was throwing the kennels into the car and trying to quickly prioritize key items. Hannah got the good suitcase, and we started throwing things in. The dogs were freaking out in the kitchen, but they were safer there, since we were scurrying. We got a few T-shirts and some underwear in the suitcase, plus some flip-flops that were handy. I grabbed the cash out of the drawer, and got the phones and computer and their power cords, and shoved them all in my computer bag. We had our wedding rings on already, thankfully, and I grabbed my other "pocket stuff." The water kept rising, and it was about two steps from the main living floor. It was all so surreal. "No, I walk there. I lug heavy crap up and down those steps. We just had that basement and crawl space cleaned up. Water doesn't go there. Doesn't the water know that it doesn't go there?" You lose rational thought in those moments. We'd gotten the immediately important stuff into my car. Hannah got the dogs. I got the new bags of dog food. She put them in the car, and I closed up. By the time I backed out of the driveway, the water was making its way up my front wheels (which were sitting lower than my rear ones, due to our slightly sloped driveway). That alone was scary. It was just rising so quickly...
We stopped at the back of the driveway. Hannah had been taking pictures all along (mainly for insurance reasons), and she wanted to snap two more. I moved the lawn mower onto our little front porch. Then, we told the neighbors we were okay and headed out. I was flooring it, of course. We turned right on Morrow. Down the hill was standing water with a car in it. Nope. U-turn in the middle of the street. Took a quick right on Kentucky. It was clear, but a cop flew past us in the other direction with his lights on, which just made everything basically feel like the end of the world. Houses flooding, cars covered in water, roads blocked, cops flying around, channel 5 filming overhead... We were concerned about our neighbors and our house, but it was about getting to safety at that point. We knew the neighbors were outside in their yards and driveways and making their own plans to get out. We had initially headed toward Grey and Shannon's about four minutes from our house, but due to road closures, we immediately went to plan B and called Mike and Lyn Vogt. I told Lyn we were headed their way, and she said that's fine, come on. When we got to Mike and Lyn's, Hannah hugged Lyn and started bawling. I hugged Mike and couldn't help but break down for a minute myself. It suddenly hit us that we had, in span of about an hour, become victims of a natural disaster. Evacuees. Homeless. We hadn't had time to think about that until we pulled into their driveway. And when it hit us, it was too much to handle. But they were gracious and loving, as usual. Mike had put on a pot of coffee. They sent Hannah to take a long bath in their large, nice tub in the master suite. Mike and I talked a little while we sipped coffee. We were so grateful to be okay, but we had just entered a world with all questions and no answers, and we simply didn't know what to do. When I left a voicemail for my boss, Anne (herself a Katrina survivor), I was about to say, "It's Sunday afternoon, around 3:30." Then I glanced at my watch. It was 10:50 AM. We had been through hell, and it wasn't even lunchtime.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON/EVENING 5/2
The bath helped Hannah, and the coffee helped me. We eventually settled in and started watching the local news. Around mid-afternoon, we finally saw footage of our neighborhood. That was hard. I didn't break down again, but I wanted to. The Pep Boys and Burger King on Charlotte, bordering one end of our neighborhood, had folks in boats in the parking lot. The NES substation behind our neighborhood was basically a lake. Delray Ave., dead center of the area, got hit the hardest. The rapids were rushing through the houses. Two people died. Our street, 57th Ave. N., is one street up from Delray off of Morrow. Unbelievable. Neighbors died. One street away. Based on all the footage we'd seen, we expected that our house had been submerged at least up to the roof line, but we had no way of knowing. We could only guess. We DID know, based on what we'd seen, that the water MUST have gotten to our main living floor. We tried to mentally prepare ourselves for our total loss, but let's face it: you simply can't prepare yourself for that. We continued to see horrible footage of West Nashville and Bellevue, along with plenty of other areas. We expected the worst.
Mike and Lyn continued to be great and generous hosts. We were being fed. We had a shower readily available for use. We were warm and dry... We were shell-shocked and numb, with intermittent moments of being overwhelmed with emotion. I told Hannah it felt surreal about 90% of the time, like it wasn't even happening, but that it felt unbearable the other 10%, and nothing in between.
SUNDAY NIGHT 5/2
Grey texted Sunday night and said they'd gotten into our house and to call if we wanted details. We called. We expected to hear about full submersion. We got good news. (Granted, "good" become a relative term, but we were talking about a catastrophic flood covering the central region of a fairly large state.) The water had only come about 18-20" up the main living area. No full submersion. Anything that was up high was okay, and they were pretty sure that most of our hanging clothes were okay. This was fantastic news. We knew it would still be a scene of devastation in our neighborhood, but at least our entire house hadn't been under water. Hannah's favorite paintings were saved. Her vase of Aegean sea water was saved. Her heirloom cookie jar was saved. My painting that had been done years ago by my late grandmother was saved. We were still very emotional and hurting from all that had happened, but Grey's news was a much-needed dose of positive news, all things considered.
Also Sunday night, Hannah received a text from her boss, Paul. (They'd been in touch during the day.) Paul had coordinated a group of volunteers from her work (Dave Ramsey's company), and he'd lined up several pick-up trucks. This gesture was kind of overwhelming, since we were feeling very burdened at the thought of having the clean out the house. This, too, was helpful news, and it took a little bit of the edge off...
Then we went to bed.
MONDAY 5/3
Hannah and I got up, took the dogs out and fed them, and headed out from Brentwood. I'd had some sort of spell before we left; got light-headed and tingly. But I went in and sat down, and that helped some. While we were driving, I told Hannah I felt hot, but from the inside. She said, "You're red!" I looked in the mirror, and yup, I was kind of red. Oh, well. We were going to stop by Chick-fil-A for breakfast to go, so we hoped it would subside by then. It had started subsiding when we got there, and Hannah drove from there to our house. By the time we got to our house, I'd returned to normal color and felt okay. Still not sure what happened, but with all of the tension and stress of the preceding 24 hours, we figured it was just my body trying to cope...
We got to the house, did a quick walk through, and saw it as Grey had described it. Except that now it smelled positively rancid. We did okay emotionally, which surprised me. We had the obligatory moment of standing in our front living room after surveying the damage, hugging each other and crying. But that only last for a minute. There was stuff to do. We talked to our neighbors (Jessica and Crystal) on the other side (i.e., not Mike's side). They were okay, but they'd had about a foot of water in their place. But they were renters, so it was a different situation for them anyway. The roof of what used to be our gazebo was in their back yard. Mike's boat and storage building were in our back yard. The water had receded several feet, but the basement still had lots in it, and the back yard was still very much a lake. You should have seen how good it looked after I mowed it on Friday...
We headed to Lowe's and then to Extra Space to rent a storage unit. At Lowe's, we got SteelSak trash bags and lots of boxes and packing tape. At Extra Space, we got a 5' x 15' unit. While I was doing the paperwork at Extra Space, Dave Ramsey himself called to check on Hannah. If nothing else, the people at Dave's company are unfailingly generous and take care of their own. We then headed back to the house...
The first of Hannah's co-workers had already arrived and started emptying the house into the front yard. The others soon arrived, most of them in an impressive-looking caravan of shiny pick-ups and SUVs. They had lots of large plastic bins, water, snacks, tape, etc. They came prepared, and they were there to make our lives better. It's hard to accept so much generosity, but we couldn't have been more grateful. Hannah, the professional project manager, had already devised a system in her mind. So, she rallied the troops, gave them instructions, and everyone immediately dispersed and started making short work of our house. They took a 1,600-sq.-ft. house and emptied it in about four hours, including organizing the goods, labeling the boxes, and taking the salvageable items to the storage unit (where I spent much of my day). And when they were done helping us, the guys who'd brought the trucks headed to another co-workers house to do the same for them. Amazing people...
When we had more or less wrapped up what needed to be done at the house, we dropped some large (donated) bins at Grey and Shannon's, then headed to Bobbie's Dairy Dip for some seriously good burgers at one of our favorite West Nashville landmark. Unsurprisingly, Paul continued his generosity by paying for everyone's meals. Rarely has a bacon cheeseburger tasted so good...
We closed out our day with some errands, another homecooked meal courtesy of Mike and Lyn and the crew, and posting flood pics on Facebook. Have a look, if you have access; if you don't, someone you know surely does. (The pics do about 25% justice to the reality.)
TUESDAY 5/4
Today, Hannah went back to work. She decompresses by working the tension and energy out. I don't. My co-workers have very generously offered to take care of the hearings I was supposed to have conducted so far this week, so I was able to focus on other things. Kimberly and Joe very kindly took me to lunch at Southern Bred for some home cooking. Another trip to Target. Another trip to the house. Mike and his wife were in better spirits today, thankfully. The water has receded by about two feet, which is to say that it's only up to the bottom step in the basement now. :-) The main floor is still disgusting and reeking, but that's not going to change for a while. Also, the world's largest catfish has found a new home in the lake that used to be our back yard, and it was actually kind of entertaining to watch him. There's a long road ahead for everyone, but we're grateful to have flood insurance, even though it isn't "primo" flood insurance. Just glad to see folks getting their heads around everything and still being around to help each other.
And we continue to receive unexpected blessings, left and right. One of Hannah's co-workers bought us a brand new Sealy Posturepedic king bed, which another of her co-workers offered to deliver wherever we ended up needing it to go. Another of her co-workers gave us a very generous check to help with the aftermath. The Jewish Community Center (our gym) said that they would be providing our membership for free for the remainder of 2010. And the list goes on... As I type this, Lyn and Rochelle are about to put on a supper of homemade adobe-spiced pork tacos.
To be in the middle of a tragedy, the blessings and generosity are surrounding us everywhere. We are so grateful for all of the prayers and support and are humbled to be the recipients.
-David
P.S. - Hannah will be posting on here, too. Our perceptions of everything were so different, we figured we both ought to throw in our two cents. :-)
SATURDAY 5/1
Hannah and I had a great first part of the day Saturday, through mid-afternoon. It was raining heavily, but we ran errands at Target, Petsmart, etc. Had a pretty good time, and got home around mid-afternoon. When we got home, we saw that the water had started coming pretty far up the neighbors back yard (which sits lower than ours). Hannah saw out the window that Mike, our neighbor, was trying to move all of his big items from his lowest-sitting carport, where he stored riding mowers, trailers, etc., to higher ground. (On our cul-de-sac, everyone's front yards are several feet higher than their back yards.) She said I should go help him, and she was right, so I put on some rough clothes and headed over. Of course, he had literally just finished moving things to higher ground and didn't need any help. Told him I was sorry, we'd been out running errands, or I would've helped. He said no problem, "This stuff is old hat to me. Do it every time it floods. Been in my garage a bunch of times. (Pointing at our basement) Been in that basement, too." That was news. [Side note: We'd asked before buying our house whether they'd ever had flooding issues with their basement. The agent said they had not. FYI, that's what we call a lie. :-) So, Mike had unintentionally provided some verrrry surprising and interesting info... An honest answer to our pre-purchase question, and we wouldn't have bought that house, but that's an issue for another day...]
I went back into our house after talking with Mike, and I told Hannah what he'd said. "Hmmm...but we were told it had never flooded!" "I know..." So, Hannah asked me to look and make sure the basement was okay, even though the water wasn't up to our house at that point. (Remember, this was Saturday; Sunday was the big one.) Turns out, we had some water seeping in and pooling at the bottom of our basement steps. Great. So, I went to setting up our new wet/dry vac that my folks had given us, and Hannah went to making phone calls. About the time I was working on my third six-gallon load in the wet vac, Hannah told me that Grey and Shannon were on their way to help. By that time, the water had started coming into the basement from more places and directions. By the time Grey and Shannon could get there, which was quite soon after Hannah called them, the water was several inches deep in our basement. Hannah and I had started moving everything we could to shelves in one of our basement rooms, and Grey and Shannon helped make short work of finishing that job. At the point, water was coming through cinder blocks, under the exterior basement door (it opens into the back yard, under the deck), seeping through the window, etc. Fast forward a bit. Grey had suggested that we put some wood down and lift our chest freezer onto it, so that maybe it wouldn't take on water and short out. So, we did that. I'm glad my friends are faster thinkers than I am... Grey had also called Patrick to come over with cinder blocks, materials, etc. that he may have. So, Patrick and Betsy arrived a few minutes later. Shannon went and bought some tarps, and Grey and I used Patrick's cinder blocks and bricks to try and barricade the basement door and window. The water had receded a bit at this point, which made that job easier. Patrick and I then went to Lowe's to try to buy a pump to clear out the basement. They were sold out. (Shocker.) Got on the horn, and all the area stores were sold out. Great. So, Patrick found a couple of items to help Grey try and figure out a way to convert our wet/dry vac into a pumping device. Plans A through D were developed, but in the end, some buckets were used. Of course, it quickly became clear that that approach was futile, so we told everyone to call it a day.
Our friends had, with zero notice, dropped everything they were doing that day and come over to help. The water won the day, but not due to lack of trying on our friends' parts. They busted their tails to try and take care of us, and not one of them complained a single time. God has blessed us with amazing friends, no?
SUNDAY MORNING 5/2
Sunday morning, we had decided not to go to church after our ordeal on Saturday. As it turns out, that made all the difference, and the minor basement flooding on Saturday ended up being a huge blessing. (For example, if we had gone to church on Sunday morning, our beloved dogs, Oscar and Mollie, almost definitely would have drowned in the kitchen, and we also would not have been able to secure any of our belongings, but I digress...) Hannah took Mollie out to use the bathroom, and when she came back in, she said the basement water had all gone away. I looked, and (asif she would have been confused about that) it somehow had all gone away. We assume it seeped away overnight through cracks in the basement floor. So, we relaxed a little and watched a couple of episodes of King of Queens. Then the rain started back. We knew the ground had become saturated on Saturday, so it was going to basically function like concrete instead of dirt (i.e., it would no longer be somewhat absorbent) if the water started rising again. Sure enough, we saw it creeping back up Mike's back yard, toward the bank that goes down several feet from our property to his. Then it started coming up the bank. So, we started paying close attention and monitoring the water line every couple of minutes. We assumed it would be back in the basement, so we didn't worry about that, since a fair bit of damage had already been done on Saturday. Before we knew it, our back yard was resembling a lake, and the basement had about a foot of water in it. Around that time, just before 9:00 AM, Hannah had pointed out that we'd only cut some of the breakers Saturday night, and other, higher outlets were about to be affected in the basement. Then, we heard it. The big windown in the basement gave way, and water started rushing in and forming rapids at the bottom of the basement steps. Naturally, water started rising in the basement at a rapid clip, since there was practically no resistance anymore. We started talking about evacuating, and how does that look? Really, who has to evacuate their home? Who's ready for that? Then the water starting climbing the basement steps by about one step per eight or ten minutes. Mind you, we had four for five remaining steps. We started scurrying. I moved her car up the street to somewhat higher ground, and I whipped mine in by the door. At this point, water had fully engulfed the back yard and was doing its best to reach our front yard and driveway (which sit up higher). I was sprinting around, the neighbors were all doing the same, and, simply stated, everyone was trying to remain composed despite the fact that everyone was freaking out. It was clear that the water was going to keep rising, and that we all had to get out. Hannah was crying and having trouble breathing. I was throwing the kennels into the car and trying to quickly prioritize key items. Hannah got the good suitcase, and we started throwing things in. The dogs were freaking out in the kitchen, but they were safer there, since we were scurrying. We got a few T-shirts and some underwear in the suitcase, plus some flip-flops that were handy. I grabbed the cash out of the drawer, and got the phones and computer and their power cords, and shoved them all in my computer bag. We had our wedding rings on already, thankfully, and I grabbed my other "pocket stuff." The water kept rising, and it was about two steps from the main living floor. It was all so surreal. "No, I walk there. I lug heavy crap up and down those steps. We just had that basement and crawl space cleaned up. Water doesn't go there. Doesn't the water know that it doesn't go there?" You lose rational thought in those moments. We'd gotten the immediately important stuff into my car. Hannah got the dogs. I got the new bags of dog food. She put them in the car, and I closed up. By the time I backed out of the driveway, the water was making its way up my front wheels (which were sitting lower than my rear ones, due to our slightly sloped driveway). That alone was scary. It was just rising so quickly...
We stopped at the back of the driveway. Hannah had been taking pictures all along (mainly for insurance reasons), and she wanted to snap two more. I moved the lawn mower onto our little front porch. Then, we told the neighbors we were okay and headed out. I was flooring it, of course. We turned right on Morrow. Down the hill was standing water with a car in it. Nope. U-turn in the middle of the street. Took a quick right on Kentucky. It was clear, but a cop flew past us in the other direction with his lights on, which just made everything basically feel like the end of the world. Houses flooding, cars covered in water, roads blocked, cops flying around, channel 5 filming overhead... We were concerned about our neighbors and our house, but it was about getting to safety at that point. We knew the neighbors were outside in their yards and driveways and making their own plans to get out. We had initially headed toward Grey and Shannon's about four minutes from our house, but due to road closures, we immediately went to plan B and called Mike and Lyn Vogt. I told Lyn we were headed their way, and she said that's fine, come on. When we got to Mike and Lyn's, Hannah hugged Lyn and started bawling. I hugged Mike and couldn't help but break down for a minute myself. It suddenly hit us that we had, in span of about an hour, become victims of a natural disaster. Evacuees. Homeless. We hadn't had time to think about that until we pulled into their driveway. And when it hit us, it was too much to handle. But they were gracious and loving, as usual. Mike had put on a pot of coffee. They sent Hannah to take a long bath in their large, nice tub in the master suite. Mike and I talked a little while we sipped coffee. We were so grateful to be okay, but we had just entered a world with all questions and no answers, and we simply didn't know what to do. When I left a voicemail for my boss, Anne (herself a Katrina survivor), I was about to say, "It's Sunday afternoon, around 3:30." Then I glanced at my watch. It was 10:50 AM. We had been through hell, and it wasn't even lunchtime.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON/EVENING 5/2
The bath helped Hannah, and the coffee helped me. We eventually settled in and started watching the local news. Around mid-afternoon, we finally saw footage of our neighborhood. That was hard. I didn't break down again, but I wanted to. The Pep Boys and Burger King on Charlotte, bordering one end of our neighborhood, had folks in boats in the parking lot. The NES substation behind our neighborhood was basically a lake. Delray Ave., dead center of the area, got hit the hardest. The rapids were rushing through the houses. Two people died. Our street, 57th Ave. N., is one street up from Delray off of Morrow. Unbelievable. Neighbors died. One street away. Based on all the footage we'd seen, we expected that our house had been submerged at least up to the roof line, but we had no way of knowing. We could only guess. We DID know, based on what we'd seen, that the water MUST have gotten to our main living floor. We tried to mentally prepare ourselves for our total loss, but let's face it: you simply can't prepare yourself for that. We continued to see horrible footage of West Nashville and Bellevue, along with plenty of other areas. We expected the worst.
Mike and Lyn continued to be great and generous hosts. We were being fed. We had a shower readily available for use. We were warm and dry... We were shell-shocked and numb, with intermittent moments of being overwhelmed with emotion. I told Hannah it felt surreal about 90% of the time, like it wasn't even happening, but that it felt unbearable the other 10%, and nothing in between.
SUNDAY NIGHT 5/2
Grey texted Sunday night and said they'd gotten into our house and to call if we wanted details. We called. We expected to hear about full submersion. We got good news. (Granted, "good" become a relative term, but we were talking about a catastrophic flood covering the central region of a fairly large state.) The water had only come about 18-20" up the main living area. No full submersion. Anything that was up high was okay, and they were pretty sure that most of our hanging clothes were okay. This was fantastic news. We knew it would still be a scene of devastation in our neighborhood, but at least our entire house hadn't been under water. Hannah's favorite paintings were saved. Her vase of Aegean sea water was saved. Her heirloom cookie jar was saved. My painting that had been done years ago by my late grandmother was saved. We were still very emotional and hurting from all that had happened, but Grey's news was a much-needed dose of positive news, all things considered.
Also Sunday night, Hannah received a text from her boss, Paul. (They'd been in touch during the day.) Paul had coordinated a group of volunteers from her work (Dave Ramsey's company), and he'd lined up several pick-up trucks. This gesture was kind of overwhelming, since we were feeling very burdened at the thought of having the clean out the house. This, too, was helpful news, and it took a little bit of the edge off...
Then we went to bed.
MONDAY 5/3
Hannah and I got up, took the dogs out and fed them, and headed out from Brentwood. I'd had some sort of spell before we left; got light-headed and tingly. But I went in and sat down, and that helped some. While we were driving, I told Hannah I felt hot, but from the inside. She said, "You're red!" I looked in the mirror, and yup, I was kind of red. Oh, well. We were going to stop by Chick-fil-A for breakfast to go, so we hoped it would subside by then. It had started subsiding when we got there, and Hannah drove from there to our house. By the time we got to our house, I'd returned to normal color and felt okay. Still not sure what happened, but with all of the tension and stress of the preceding 24 hours, we figured it was just my body trying to cope...
We got to the house, did a quick walk through, and saw it as Grey had described it. Except that now it smelled positively rancid. We did okay emotionally, which surprised me. We had the obligatory moment of standing in our front living room after surveying the damage, hugging each other and crying. But that only last for a minute. There was stuff to do. We talked to our neighbors (Jessica and Crystal) on the other side (i.e., not Mike's side). They were okay, but they'd had about a foot of water in their place. But they were renters, so it was a different situation for them anyway. The roof of what used to be our gazebo was in their back yard. Mike's boat and storage building were in our back yard. The water had receded several feet, but the basement still had lots in it, and the back yard was still very much a lake. You should have seen how good it looked after I mowed it on Friday...
We headed to Lowe's and then to Extra Space to rent a storage unit. At Lowe's, we got SteelSak trash bags and lots of boxes and packing tape. At Extra Space, we got a 5' x 15' unit. While I was doing the paperwork at Extra Space, Dave Ramsey himself called to check on Hannah. If nothing else, the people at Dave's company are unfailingly generous and take care of their own. We then headed back to the house...
The first of Hannah's co-workers had already arrived and started emptying the house into the front yard. The others soon arrived, most of them in an impressive-looking caravan of shiny pick-ups and SUVs. They had lots of large plastic bins, water, snacks, tape, etc. They came prepared, and they were there to make our lives better. It's hard to accept so much generosity, but we couldn't have been more grateful. Hannah, the professional project manager, had already devised a system in her mind. So, she rallied the troops, gave them instructions, and everyone immediately dispersed and started making short work of our house. They took a 1,600-sq.-ft. house and emptied it in about four hours, including organizing the goods, labeling the boxes, and taking the salvageable items to the storage unit (where I spent much of my day). And when they were done helping us, the guys who'd brought the trucks headed to another co-workers house to do the same for them. Amazing people...
When we had more or less wrapped up what needed to be done at the house, we dropped some large (donated) bins at Grey and Shannon's, then headed to Bobbie's Dairy Dip for some seriously good burgers at one of our favorite West Nashville landmark. Unsurprisingly, Paul continued his generosity by paying for everyone's meals. Rarely has a bacon cheeseburger tasted so good...
We closed out our day with some errands, another homecooked meal courtesy of Mike and Lyn and the crew, and posting flood pics on Facebook. Have a look, if you have access; if you don't, someone you know surely does. (The pics do about 25% justice to the reality.)
TUESDAY 5/4
Today, Hannah went back to work. She decompresses by working the tension and energy out. I don't. My co-workers have very generously offered to take care of the hearings I was supposed to have conducted so far this week, so I was able to focus on other things. Kimberly and Joe very kindly took me to lunch at Southern Bred for some home cooking. Another trip to Target. Another trip to the house. Mike and his wife were in better spirits today, thankfully. The water has receded by about two feet, which is to say that it's only up to the bottom step in the basement now. :-) The main floor is still disgusting and reeking, but that's not going to change for a while. Also, the world's largest catfish has found a new home in the lake that used to be our back yard, and it was actually kind of entertaining to watch him. There's a long road ahead for everyone, but we're grateful to have flood insurance, even though it isn't "primo" flood insurance. Just glad to see folks getting their heads around everything and still being around to help each other.
And we continue to receive unexpected blessings, left and right. One of Hannah's co-workers bought us a brand new Sealy Posturepedic king bed, which another of her co-workers offered to deliver wherever we ended up needing it to go. Another of her co-workers gave us a very generous check to help with the aftermath. The Jewish Community Center (our gym) said that they would be providing our membership for free for the remainder of 2010. And the list goes on... As I type this, Lyn and Rochelle are about to put on a supper of homemade adobe-spiced pork tacos.
To be in the middle of a tragedy, the blessings and generosity are surrounding us everywhere. We are so grateful for all of the prayers and support and are humbled to be the recipients.
-David
P.S. - Hannah will be posting on here, too. Our perceptions of everything were so different, we figured we both ought to throw in our two cents. :-)
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