Flood Victim 101

On Monday, July 6th, my life was fairly average. I had the day off work and spent time cleaning, doing laundry, and working on some podcasting. My boyfriend came over and went to the store with me to buy groceries, after which we made dinner. We watched Jeopardy and started a movie -- Ghost. I was finally introducing him to Patrick Swayze. All in all, an average summer day.

That all changed at approximately 8:15 pm. Shortly after beginning the movie I started hearing a really weird noise. We weren't far enough into the movie to get past the creepy part and into the funny part, so I made my boyfriend get up to see what it was. Thank God for the life size cutout of Luke Skywalker that my friends had given me back in high school. Luke was scratching the wall because he was standing in water.

Forty-five minutes later we were about a foot and a half deep in water climbing out the window in the dark. The water rose so fast. Within ten minutes the water had passed my ankles. We weren't sure what was going on, so we started with ground level items and then moved up from there. The water was coming in from both doors and was significantly higher outside than inside. It's amazing how calm we managed to stay and how I was able to just let some things go because I couldn't save everything. In the end we were in the dark sloshing through the apartment and climbing out of the window into the knee deep water and rain.




When I went back the next day the water was out of the apartment and was going down in the apartment, though my car was still standing in it. I got a few things and then went back to the house to try to sleep. My mom made it down that afternoon and we headed over to the apartment where they told me I had until 8pm to move everything out of the apartment (we were told this at 4). Thankfully we were able to get some help and a walk-in special on a climate controlled storage unit. Somehow we got everything moved. I'm still amazed that we pulled it off.



Officially I am not homeless-- the proper term is "displaced student." The Red Cross has given me a little money to help buy food and my university that I will be attending in the fall has pro-rated a dorm room for me until the end of summer school (about 2 weeks). The damage is extensive enough that I have to find a new place to live before August. But so far I've been blessed to have everything fall into place. My car has been cleared by a mechanic, and I have a meeting with our Dean of Students to work on a long-term solution. My aunt and uncle live nearby and were kind enough to let my mom and I stay with them while these solutions came together, so I haven't had to stay in a shelter at all throughout all of this, which is unbelievably amazing. Overall God has blessed me with people who have the means and have been able to help.

If there's one thing I now know, always buy flood insurance.

Oh, and make sure to always have your knitting supplies in a bag. I can't work on the Great Gatsby Dress even if I have time because my stitch markers are in the hastily packed boxes in the storage unit. Guess I'm stuck working on washcloths.