Then Next Morning

The next morning  we started bringing everything light enough to be carried upstairs. Dad and Landon started to pull the carpet up. As we got closer to the pool table we still were not getting any dry pad. Under the pool table might be wet which means we had to take the extremely heavy pool table down. Everywhere we thought might be dry was wet, because the carpet pad we had underneath was so thick it sucked the water up like a big sponge. 

   Alex and Joseph had the job of carrying the sopping wet pad outside. The way we pulled the carpet up, was to pile everything to one side of the room, then pull the carpet up on the empty side. Then, pull the pad out, and lay the carpet back down. And  then move everything to the side without the pad and do the same. We did this to every room downstairs. It took us all day and we went to bed very late that night.

August

     Everything was going well, supper was almost done. Then we would have cake to celebrate my sweet 16 birthday. It was raining and one could barely see out the windows. I was video recording the rain poring down outside not knowing what disaster awaited me in the future.     

    I hurried in to the kitchen and continued to set the table for dinner, when there is a scream of terror coming from the basement. It was Joseph and he was yelling “the bathroom is flooded!” In no less than a minute Landon and I were down scooping gallon buckets out of the sump-pump and dumping them outside through the garage steps. The basement was being flooded again. The sump-pump could not keep up with the rain that we were getting. I hustled into my room to look for water and the carpet was floating by the window. I began to throw towels on the wet carpet, but with every towel I threw they became saturated. I gave up.

     I started to throw everything I could into the nearest box only stopping to comfort the traumatized Dominic who was most upset. He was very concerned that we were all going to die. I told him the rain was going to stop and the water was only going to get an inch high, showing him with my fingers how big that was. Then he started to calm down. Landon was calling me back to help him with the rising water in the sump room so I told Dominic to go back upstairs to wait where he would not be in the way. But that just made him more upset that I was not coming with him. He said, “But I’m scared!” Then to the rescue came Sarah who had a headache at the time so she could not help carry water. She took his hand and led him up the stairs along with Claire.

     Quickly I went back to shoveling water with Landon. At around 11pm(about three hrs after Joseph screamed) we had probably taken 30 gal of water out of the sum-pump. “Happy flood day to you,” Landon said. I had to laugh about that for a while. For the next two hours we used the shop-vac hose to suck water out of the carpet which was not very effective.  There was just too much water to keep up. Dad came home with a second smaller vac to help. At 1:30am we decided we would have to pull the carpet up in the morning. This was a very distressing thought for me. The entire time I was scooping water a flash back was playing in my head when  five years ago, we flooded for the first time. Every detail was replayed in my head like it was presently happening.

 

That will be the most memorable birthday ever.

To be continued…

 

July

Sarah left for Alaska for two weeks after some major packing. It was different being without Sarah for so long, especially in the mornings when she would normally get up and turn on the light while I was still sleeping. And just not having her presents around was a little strange.  But, two weeks later she was home and everything was back to normal, the light was turned back on and under my grunts of displeasure I was pleased she was home.

January

January went very fast with the beautiful weather we were having and play practices to keep us busy. All the play practices went well. My costume weighed 30lbs and was very hot and I had a 20 inch tall wig. On the day of the performance  five plays were performed. Our play won first place. Landon got an actors award along with a few others. Our cast did so well at working together the judges made up there own award  to give the entire cast on the spot. The ensemble award. 

 

 

Nothing happened in February

December

HO,HO,HO Merry Christmas.

Landon and I got our Tantara scripts in the mail.                                                                                           The play practices start in January.