The Flood

We have so much to be thankful for regarding this weekend's flood! We just keep thinking "Whew, I'm so glad that..." Let me share a few. I had gone to bed on Thursday night afraid of the river level, and even dreamed that we were flooded. When I drove the boys to school Friday morning, we prayed about it because the river was higher than ever. At 7:50 I called Ed who was 3 1/2 hours away at meetings and told him that I was nervous and asked him what I should be doing. At 8:15 the police came by and told me that I needed to get ready. He told me a lot more, but all I understood was to get ready. I wondered what exactly that meant. Then shortly after that counsel, the firemen rang the bell and told me that I needed to take my kids and evacuate, that the river would soon be flooding our street. I went in and woke up Jaylin, changed Shaylee's diaper, and had the kids brush their teeth...you know, all the most important things! My friend also called and told me she would come and help me get things ready, but there was no time, and I just gathered a few things together and loaded the kids and the essentials into the van. With every trip I made to the van, the fireman who was waiting at the gate kept motioning for me to leave...the river was now on the road. I went back into the house, wondering if I should try to save anything from the water, but realized that I had no time, so at 8:45 I got in the van and drove off, through about 8 inches of water already in the road.

As I drove to my friend's house, I was so thankful that she had called to offer us a place to stay...where else would I have gone? Next I realized how relieved I was that the evacuation happened in the morning, instead of the middle of the night! The boys were at school, so Jaylin, Gage, Shaylee and I stayed with this gracious family. We watched the news and realized that all over Slovakia, flooding was going on, many people's homes were underwater. At noon, we were able to go back to the house, as a dam break had brought on the flood, and the water level was already going back down.

I went in the house, and was instantly grateful again that the main floor was dry and undisturbed. I walked into the basement and found that two feet of water covered the floor, but with all we had seen on the news earlier in the day, I was so thankful that it wasn't worse than that! Ed was able to make it home by 4:30, despite the rain, the widespread flooding, and many closed roads.

The rest of the day then, people were in our house and our yard, shoveling the mud, pumping out the water, sorting through the ruins, and cleaning up the floor. Youth group kids even came to play with our kids! We were so blessed by these hard workers who helped us until the job was done at 9:30! When they left we had a clean tile floor, and we were amazed at how fast everyone worked to get that far in the process.

The next day we continued to clean up the yard and haul away the garbage. We heard story after story of water levels in homes in a lower part of town which were so much worse than ours. We lost some things that were being stored in the basement, but not much at all, and we are grateful again, that after sitting in water for about ten hours, our washer and dryer are still working!!! The dryer doesn't sound completely right, but it is still drying clothes, so we are thankful!

Our landlord lost quite a lot, as they were storing some of their things in a basement room. I guess this is one good way to clean things out. Again, we are thankful for the way God brought us through this bump in the road.