As I sit in our still torn apart downstairs, I am trying to look on the bright side of things. The flooding did allow Nan to get rid of the carpeting in the room, which she has always hated. It has allowed me to renovate one of the closets and re-do my comic book collection area. It has also allowed me to go through those comics and catalog and read lots of them. And I didn't lose any comics, even though one of the long boxes was on the floor.
At the time, though, it was hard to see the bright side. The night before the flooding, a near by lightning strike fried two of our televisions, our cable modem, router, caller i.d. boxes and the recessed lighting I had installed in the bookcases we built. I was suffering a major relapse in my recent illness and was struggling to even stand or grasp a pencil, let alone spend the weekend filling sandbags and moving our possessions. Our insurance company informed us early on that they would not be able to help us out.
But we got through it. I had worried we would spend all of our vacation money on the cleanup effort and we pretty much did. However, my folks, Nan's mom, and an unexpected refund from my dad's estate helped out a great deal and allowed us to spend last week in Kill Devil Hills.
So here are some pictures from the weekend of May 27, 2011.
This drain USUALLY allows water to....um, drain, into our side yard. However, the side yard was so saturated that even when we pumped the water from the garage and driveway across the street into a culvert, it would flow up from the drain and fill the area almost as quickly as we emptied it.
The lowest point of the water. It measured around 3 1/2 inches at Nan's car's front tire.
The deepest point of the flood. My improvised ruler was only marked up to 6 inches. I think I pegged this at 9 inches.
The view from the front steps on day three, after three solid days of pumping the water away.
One of the reason the flooding inside was so bad was because of a tear on the seal of our garage door.
Another view looking out to the street. The water behind the mailbox was over a foot deep.
The water in the side yard was around 8 inches deep. Our first attempt at pumping the water beyond the limit of the drainage areas of our side yard.
Some of the interior damage. This is the hallway from the garage to the upstairs part of the house. We had to remove all of the carpet on these stairs.
This was when we were FINALLY able to pump the water out faster than it was backing up. You can see the beginning of the debris pile. We eventually had to call for a dumpster and spent the week filling it. We went for sandbags shortly after this picture was taken.
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Crap! Sorry you had so much water damage.
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