Well, shortly after typing my last entry, there were more developments. I went outside with Mom at about 6 AM on Friday morning to take some pictures before I went to bed. Yes, I'm a night owl. As soon as we got out there, we spotted a firetruck driving slowly up the street. The firefighters were checking everything out and talking to the neighbors.
One of them came over to talk to Mom and she showed him that the water was two stairs away from the landing by our side door. After picking his jaw up off the ground, he said it was the worst they had seen yet (this was early on) and told us we had to leave until our gas and electricity were shut off. They felt it was serious enough that they refused to leave until we left. I suppose that should sound scary, but it was actually kinda reassuring.
At 7 AM, we were at Grandma's house. Dad crashed on the couch, but Mom and I had way too much nervous energy to sleep.
Around 10 AM, Mom and I decided to see if we could find somewhere to eat. On our way, we saw our street was open and figured we'd check out the house. It was very bizarre, our street showed absolutely no sign of wetness, despite the fact that it was a river just a few hours earlier.
The water in the basement had receded enough to reveal a couple more stairs.
As the day went on, someone from the city came and pumped the rest of the water out and the cleanup began.
Since then, countless family and friends have come by to help, items have been bleached and hosed down and/or moved out to the tree lawn to be taken away. There are huge piles of our old stuff out there now and the air smells of garbage, sewer water, and bleach. The cleanup is still going on and will be for a while.
Ours wasn't the worst of it though. In surrounding cities entire houses were submerged and roads were destroyed. Our county has officially been declared a disaster area.
Never saw this one coming.
A million thanks to everyone who's come by to help us out with this.
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