Flood Scare

I have so much to blog about. My baptism, all the rain we've been getting, and so much more. Since I just uploaded pictures, I will do the flood first.

On Sunday morning (August 19), I got up at 6:45ish to get ready for church, and noticed the answering machine blinking. I knew that it couldn't be a good thing that the machine was blinking. Who calls in the middle of the night unless it's bad? It was an automated message saying that Cascade Creek and Silver Lake Creek are expected to go over their banks and to be prepared to evacuate. I went and looked out the window and YIKES, I could see water from the house. We can *never* see water from the house, so I knew it wasn't a good sign. I knew that right away I wasn't going to go to church, and that we needed to get prepared. I called Ma, to let her know what was going on (sorry Ma for waking you up so early!) and left a message with the missionaries, since I was supposed to meet with the pastor after church and their number was the one that I had handy. I explained very briefly what was going on. Jason and I hopped in the shower really quick, and the missionaries called back. They offered assistance, and church members assistance to get stuff moved, but I declined. Jason and I have such a small house, and limited room to move stuff to, that we just did it. It meant so much to me that they offered their help. Jason and I started moving all of the electronics and everything we could upstairs or to higher ground. I started to pack a weeks worth of clothes, including work clothes for the two of us, and we just kept going. All of my scrapbooks got moved upstairs, I insisted that the pictures go in the car with us. I didn't trust to leave them in the house. I have waaaay too much scrapping stuff, so I only emptied the bottom foot of everything and moved it up higher. We packed a little bit of food, and went to the gas station and filled up with gas. We went to stop back at the house and the missionaries were there. They wanted to know if there was anything they could do, they said that they could have people over here sandbagging, and everything if we wanted to. I said that we moved all we could, and that everything else was replaceable. They insisted that we call them if we needed anything. Jason and I then headed out to his parents house half an hour away.

{Note: click on any pic to make them bigger}

To give you a perspective. I'm standing on the very edge of the bridge looking towards the house. Our house is the one with the reddish/orange shutters peeking out from behind the tree. The creek is directly across the street from our house.

This series of pics are taken at about 8:11 a.m. (or so my camera says). I will tell you again when the time changes.

With your back to the house this is looking left down the bike path.

With your back to the house this is looking right towards the bike path. (Ma, to the right is where the park is.

After lunch at his parents house, we really wanted to get back and see how things were. It had been misting off and on at their house, so we were hopeful that things would be fine at home.

TIME CHANGE: 2:02 p.m.

With your back to the house, looking right (both pictures). (I forgot to take some looking left! There was no water left on the bike path though, just sludge stuff.)

At this point we hadn't been in the house. Jason unplugged all of the fuses and everything in case water got in, it would just short everything out. Our hot water heater and furnace are located downstairs in the basement. When Jason opened the walk way to get down there, this is what we saw. YIKES! Thankfully that was as bad as it was. Near as we could tell, we didn't even get water in the basement, with the dirt floor and everything. It looks like some water just pooled in the stairway and then went down. We are so thankful!! Needless to say everything worked just fine, perfect!!

TIME CHANGE: 7:36 p.m.

We also walked to the right, as far as we could go (not far) just to the bridge. It was still under water. The second picture is a close up of the weeds caught in the railing.

TIME CHANGE: 7 a.m. on August 20.

Things are getting back to normal!!! YAY!!! Notice you can see the storm grate thingys. :) :) :)

I can't tell you how thankful Jason and I are. I was so worried that the house would flood, as it had back in 1978. I can't tell you how much I prayed and prayed, not just for us, but for everyone effected by this in the area. Other areas had it SO VERY much worse. I am so blessed and thankful that we didn't have to replace anything, and that we had no water at all in the house. I was surprised at how calm I was too. I knew what had to get done and Jason and I worked together great to get it done. It was a real eye opening experience for us. With the missionaries coming over and calling me back, I knew they cared. It felt wonderful that if needed, I would have church members over helping us out if we did flood. That put such a relief on me. I'm getting all teary eyed thinking about it again. Being so far away from my family, sometimes it's hard, I know Jason's parents would come over if we needed anything as well, but just knowing that the missionaries and thus the church were there if I needed anything, anything at all was an amazing feeling.

Oh, and we are calling for flood insurance today. We kept meaning to and never did, put it off, and just never did it. Jason called this afternoon and they said that they can't issue any new flood insurance policies for about a month, but they will call us when they can.