This week has been such a crazy one, I'll try and post it in order. On Wednesday, Justin & I ran to town. While we were gone, Justin was flood irrigating the land by our house. It usually is a slow stream of water & takes quite a while. As we were heading home, Justin got a phone call. One of those important phone calls telling him that he had two trucks in Hamer to load with hay. Justin proceeded to call home & ask the children where the water was in the field. Heaven forbid it get to close to the house. It's been in the back of our minds for about 9 years...."What would happen to the house if the water got to far?" Well, we never need wonder again! We know very well what happens.
Anyway, back to the story...... So, the phone call to home ended with good results, or so we thought. The water didn't seem ready to change yet. We would run to Hamer, load trucks, and make it home in plenty of time to change the water. I kept asking if we should have someone shut the water off for us. No, no, no, it would be fine.....
Justin loaded trucks, I read a magazine, yes, I said that right! I had a moment to read a magazine! All was good with the world or so we thought.....
As soon as we got done loading the trucks, Justin headed for home at high speeds. Some may know, some may not, but Justin is not known for high speeds. He rarely exceeds speed. I looked over at the speedometer & it was hitting 90 off & on. I then decided that this must be more serious than was let on to be.
We arrive home & to our despair, the water was in the backyard and moving quickly. Justin runs out with a shovel to try and break down the dike to release the water elsewhere. I run for the family room with the kids. It was a major pick up as fast as 6 bodies could fly: pillows, blankets, end tables, ottoman, toys, anything we could grab. If my children would pick up this fast on a normal day, we would always have a clean home!
Five minutes later, I called Justin on the phone. "I need you to get me a loader with dirt to build me a dike on my back cement patio. It's going to come in the house!". To which Justin replies, " It's not moving that fast. We'll be okay." I just love his positive attitude! He asks how far the water is from the cement. I inform him that it is on the cement. "Are you serious?" "Yes, very serious." What's a girl to do? hmmmm......I guess grab towels & do whatever we can. Well, this is no situation for towels. Towels do nothing to the water that was now rolling in through the family room door. I attempted to pull carpet away from the wall. It really did no good. The water just kept a flowing.
Justin then informed me that I'd better watch the storage room drain, because the water was headed for the sewer next. UGH! The kids & I rush to the storage room to try to do the project I've been wanting to do all spring.....Dejunk the storage room! If the sewage water gets to all my "stuff" that's gotten thrown in there by the kids, we are in trouble. Wow! I never knew I had so much energy. The most incredible part is what good helpers my kids can be in a crisis!
My husband has a plan, if we could find something to plug the hole in the drain, we may be able to keep the water out. The kids bring all sorts of balls & toys, trying to find something just the right size. They found a foam toy potato. It fit just right. We wedged it in the hole, just as the water starts to come out of the drain. It worked! Yay! We'll be okay. The water isn't coming out anymore!
I then proceed to the bathroom next door. All was not well there. The toilet was spewing water out everywhere. Not from the bowl, where the water would be clean. Oh, no, it's from the bottom of the toilet, around the seal. The bathroom was filling up as quick as the family room was! Once again, towels were no match for this mess. By this time, we had no dry towels left anywhere in the house, and I thought we had tons of towels.
I called my wonderful mother in law & explained our situation to her. Bless her heart. She dropped everything and came right over. Words cannot describe how grateful I am to her. While I ran away to Stake Mtg., which is only every 6 months, so I felt it was very important to go, my mother in law stayed & fought the futile forces.
By the time I returned from my meeting, the potato in the storage room had became saturated & was doing no good. The storage room was filling quickly. The shop vac was filling up about every minute, having to be hauled up the stairs to be dumped out front. To make a long story a little shorter, I'll conclude by saying that the bathroom & storage room radiated it's sewage to 2 of the 3 bedrooms downstairs. The carpet & pad had to be pulled out of the bedrooms, hallway, family room & my beloved craft room. It was completely saturated, half with sewage & half with flood waters. Nasty. One bright part of this fiasco, is the thought of new carpet & major dejunking of kids rooms!
The most incredible part of this whole disaster is how wonderful friends & family can be in a time of need. The only phone call I made was to my mother in law. It just blossomed from there. People brought pumps, backhoes, shop vacs, fans, everything we needed to get the situation under control. We had people at our home until after midnight trying to help, and most of them had work to be to early the next morning! I'm so thankful to live in such an incredible community.
