The Rains Came Down and the Floods Came Up!
(Originally written Monday, September 21st, in the evening.)
We've had some massive storms in the area, and a lot of flooding. Because of the flooding we couldn't get out of town today, and the school and daycare was closed. However, I made an attempt to make it to work first thing as usual, so my day started off pretty crappy. The daycare was open when I stopped there at 6:15, the teacher on duty told me the county schools were closed and traffic was bad. I figured "ok, Kent can hang out at daycare today and if I can just get on the main road that leads out of town I'll be fine". It didn't happen. I literally spent 2 hours driving within a 5 mile radius, this way and that way, getting close to where I wanted to turn off to meet a road block, turn around and the same thing a little further down another road. I was so incredibly frustrated and knew I was just wasting gas and time I finally gave up around 8:00am and made my way through traffic back home. I should have just gone to the daycare. As soon as I got in the door and pulled up my work e-mail to send my boss a note I got a call that the daycare was closing too. So, off I went again and it took about 30 minutes for what usually takes less than 10 since I had to go such a roundabout way to get to the daycare. The major road we use to connect to everything was completely shut down (I found out later that the little gas station which is at the lowest point on the road was under water and there was some gas leakage or potential gas leakage so they were considering it very hazardous and no one was allowed anywhere near that). We finally made it home and I was already exhausted. My ceiling has several wet spots that I first noticed last night, and I anxiously watched those all day too. I dug around in the attic trying to find the source of the leak without success... my poor house.
I am now completely exhausted and ready to go fall over in bed... this evening while dinner was cooking Kent discovered that the basement was partially flooded - a very low amount of water, but it covered about 1/2 of our basement/garage and our basement side is carpeted. Thankfully not nicely carpeted, just carpet scraps Kenneth cut to fit the floor space so we could walk on something other then concrete, but it was SOAKED. Our basement was not cleaned up either - there was all sorts of randomness all over the floor. That is "Kenneth's territory" in my mind, and I let him throw his junk everywhere and try to ignore it since I only go down there for laundry duty. There's really not much point in trying to clean up after him, it just goes back to the way it was in a short amount of time. In any event, we spent a good hour and a half just picking up the floor and accumulating a huge trash pile in the garage side where it was mostly still dry. I also started a large "get rid of" pile - what better time to purge?! Then we were left with a huge sopping wet carpet... We took EVERYTHING off the floor that we could and moved it into the other side, and then I took my steam cleaner down and just started sucking up water. I can't even guess how many gallons of water we took out of the basement. I know I was vacuuming for about 2 hours, and it was filling up QUICKLY for quite some time, I had to go over and over and over the same spots trying to get as much liquid up as I could. I didn't get all of it, don't know if I would have been able to even if I stayed down there all night, but we made a good dent. We have one large fan, so I left that in the middle of the floor to keep some circulation going and hope it will help start drying out the floor... Of course all of this would happen when Kenneth is gone. It always does! Makes me appreciate him and miss him like crazy. I just hope I did a good enough job... I worry about tomorrow and what else we'll discover, and I am praying HARD the rain will let up and that today was the worst and the last of it... I will probably work on the carpet again tomorrow night, but I'm going to try to get into work if the roads are a little clearer. Kent's school is closed again tomorrow and I'm going to assume the daycare will be - even if they're open I don't want to risk getting into Atlanta only to have them decide to close and then have to turn around and come pick Kent up, so he's coming with me tomorrow. He'll be fine, we have a room he can hang out in and play on the computer and read... I'm sure I won't stay all day, but I hate missing work when its not a matter of vacation or illness - feels weird to have actually been kept home because of the weather!
Ok, enough rambling, I need some sleep.
We've had some massive storms in the area, and a lot of flooding. Because of the flooding we couldn't get out of town today, and the school and daycare was closed. However, I made an attempt to make it to work first thing as usual, so my day started off pretty crappy. The daycare was open when I stopped there at 6:15, the teacher on duty told me the county schools were closed and traffic was bad. I figured "ok, Kent can hang out at daycare today and if I can just get on the main road that leads out of town I'll be fine". It didn't happen. I literally spent 2 hours driving within a 5 mile radius, this way and that way, getting close to where I wanted to turn off to meet a road block, turn around and the same thing a little further down another road. I was so incredibly frustrated and knew I was just wasting gas and time I finally gave up around 8:00am and made my way through traffic back home. I should have just gone to the daycare. As soon as I got in the door and pulled up my work e-mail to send my boss a note I got a call that the daycare was closing too. So, off I went again and it took about 30 minutes for what usually takes less than 10 since I had to go such a roundabout way to get to the daycare. The major road we use to connect to everything was completely shut down (I found out later that the little gas station which is at the lowest point on the road was under water and there was some gas leakage or potential gas leakage so they were considering it very hazardous and no one was allowed anywhere near that). We finally made it home and I was already exhausted. My ceiling has several wet spots that I first noticed last night, and I anxiously watched those all day too. I dug around in the attic trying to find the source of the leak without success... my poor house.
I am now completely exhausted and ready to go fall over in bed... this evening while dinner was cooking Kent discovered that the basement was partially flooded - a very low amount of water, but it covered about 1/2 of our basement/garage and our basement side is carpeted. Thankfully not nicely carpeted, just carpet scraps Kenneth cut to fit the floor space so we could walk on something other then concrete, but it was SOAKED. Our basement was not cleaned up either - there was all sorts of randomness all over the floor. That is "Kenneth's territory" in my mind, and I let him throw his junk everywhere and try to ignore it since I only go down there for laundry duty. There's really not much point in trying to clean up after him, it just goes back to the way it was in a short amount of time. In any event, we spent a good hour and a half just picking up the floor and accumulating a huge trash pile in the garage side where it was mostly still dry. I also started a large "get rid of" pile - what better time to purge?! Then we were left with a huge sopping wet carpet... We took EVERYTHING off the floor that we could and moved it into the other side, and then I took my steam cleaner down and just started sucking up water. I can't even guess how many gallons of water we took out of the basement. I know I was vacuuming for about 2 hours, and it was filling up QUICKLY for quite some time, I had to go over and over and over the same spots trying to get as much liquid up as I could. I didn't get all of it, don't know if I would have been able to even if I stayed down there all night, but we made a good dent. We have one large fan, so I left that in the middle of the floor to keep some circulation going and hope it will help start drying out the floor... Of course all of this would happen when Kenneth is gone. It always does! Makes me appreciate him and miss him like crazy. I just hope I did a good enough job... I worry about tomorrow and what else we'll discover, and I am praying HARD the rain will let up and that today was the worst and the last of it... I will probably work on the carpet again tomorrow night, but I'm going to try to get into work if the roads are a little clearer. Kent's school is closed again tomorrow and I'm going to assume the daycare will be - even if they're open I don't want to risk getting into Atlanta only to have them decide to close and then have to turn around and come pick Kent up, so he's coming with me tomorrow. He'll be fine, we have a room he can hang out in and play on the computer and read... I'm sure I won't stay all day, but I hate missing work when its not a matter of vacation or illness - feels weird to have actually been kept home because of the weather!
Ok, enough rambling, I need some sleep.
I hate days like that! Hopefully the rest of your week goes more smoothly.
ReplyDeleteGood thing I live at the top of the road kinda on a hill. I watched the water rushing down the road...it was bad. My basement flooded too, I havent been down to check it out because there is nothing down there. The only reason I knew it was flooded because at 3 am I kept hearing a really loud noise that i finally figured out 2 hrs later must be the sump pump...it has ran on and off for 2 days. No rain today though...thank god
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