That was the end of March, about a month before season was over. Then April 18th...this happened...
It is so hard to look back at these pictures and replay the events of that day; it gives me so much anxiety. I am hoping writing about it will be therapeutic in a way. I love documenting our life with our kids. There are so many things I would love to blog about that I haven't over the past year, and I hope to go back and do that at some point. But, this is my life right now.
I wish that I would have started blogging shortly after the flood because I know eventually we will come out of this and looking back at these pictures will keep me from ever taking anything for granted. There have been so many hard, frustrating, infuriating days over the past 4 months; I wish I would have documented the process so far. I have learned so much and, God forbid, anyone I know goes through this...I am your girl! I spend time every day dealing with this in some form or fashion...FEMA, mortgage issues, banks, insurance adjusters, builders, floor plans, contractors, county permits, electricity company, home insurance, flood insurance, storage buildings, packing/unpacking/moving/repacking, disaster recovery centers, loans, demolition companies, engineers, septic issues, well issues, mail issues, car dealerships, car insurance...its never ending. Some days I have a great attitude about it and some days I want to punch the wall. Mostly the latter lately.
Some days my kids ask about a toy that was lost in the flood or they talk about their flood house and tell people that it rained in their house - but they are getting a new one. Some days they want to live with my parents forever. They have had great attitudes and they remember so clearly what happened that day, which is so crazy to me. Sometimes when it rains, Sawyer will worry about a flood and Ty is terrified of thunder. Just today she was talking about it and remembered that she was sleeping when it happened and we had to wake her up. I barely remember that blur of a day, but they do. They remember the firemen coming, they remember that they "got to ride in a boat" - fortunately they don't remember the strong current and terrified looks on the firefighters faces.
All that being said, I am thankful we were awake before the water started coming in so we could get the kids and as much stuff as we could to higher ground. We have had the best support system around us. Our friends and family have prayed for us, helped us move, helped us clean mud off of anything that was remotely salvageable, done our laundry, kept us company, walked us through insurance, given us advice, helped us buy cars, cooked for us, watched our kids, helped us financially, listened...this list is never ending as well. I have learned the greatest lessons in humility and patience and am still learning to trust in God's plan and just take everything as it comes, I cannot control it all - or any of it for that matter.
I hope to start blogging regularly again and keep up with this process. We were supposed to demo the "flood house" this week, but as per usual, things didn't happen as planned. We had to cancel at 4:30 the day before because of a last minute (HUGE) change from the engineers. So, everything is on hold again while we try to determine how high we need to elevate our new house. We planned on about 4 feet (we had 28 inches of water in the house) thinking that would be more than sufficient. Initially the engineers were saying 2-3 feet, but then all of a sudden they said 8-10 feet. Needless to say, that threw us for a huge loop. I felt like everything was being suddenly ripped out from under us again. Building a house 8-10 feet off the ground in the middle of the country just isn't an option for us and we had to go back to square one and rethink our options. So we are back to the waiting game while they work it out with the county and with FEMA...all this fuss over determining a base flood elevation. No one wants to commit to a number at this point, but our builders are working on some options that might work. Thankfully (I hope!), my parents aren't sick of us yet.
So...this is where we stand now, 4 months later.
Barry has worked tirelessly getting the house ready for demo and maintaining things out there. Hopefully we will be able to pass that baton onto the builders soon! I hope to have a much more positive update in the next two weeks, maybe I will get around to writing about something fun in the mean time.
