Monday Update

After another sleepless night, we hit the road to recovery early this morning. These are our activities of the day:

We have spoken with our insurance agent and the claim has been opened. We will be keeping a list of all lost. Nothing will be tossed out without being accounted for first. I have taken tons of pictures but I'll be taking even more of EVERYTHING! The insurance company will be in touch soon. We're in that "waiting" phase right now since the adjuster (who we have spoken with) can't "walk in". Unfortunately the barn won't be covered, BUT the contents are! Hooray! The list is getting longer.

We went back to the neighborhood today--no real change. We had hoped for some receding in the waters, but not much---maybe an inch or two--at most.

Three other families from the neighborhood were there when we were there. The county was also there to evaluate the damage. Of the families present--none have flood insurance. One family was told by the county that their property was not on a flood plain--so they never bothered to get it. This family lost not only the white sedan (in one of the pictures posted by Stefanie), but their new Honda Civic Hybrid and two motorcycles. Thankfully those are all insured. The other family with the pool lost their BMW and a volvo in their garage. I guess when Dave moved his car to higher ground he tried to convince them to evacuate, but they both thought they were out of danger since their homes sit higher. Wrong. My heart aches for all 9 of our other neighbors who have lost their homes and stuff. The home directly across from us is on a slope, the water is lapping up, but not in her house so far. A small miracle in the midst of a mess!

We went to the home of a friend who has offered her HUGE garage as a storage site for what we were able to retrieve (thanks Amy!!!!). We found the bags of DISGUSTING wet laundry from our closets and clothes hamper. We spent an hour and a half at the laundromat washing everything and actually everything fared fairly well. Believe me, I had had my doubts. Some of it was horrendous. We also found a couple of things that we knew we had, but feared we'd never find. Since our stuff is divided between Stef and Danny's house, our friend Amy's garage, and Danny's mom's house we were sure we'd never find it. You have to realize that stuff was shoved in plastic garbage bags and put into boats-- there was no rhyme or reason to how they were "packed". Some shoes were found floating, but those will probably be thrown out in the end--I'm not sure the odor will ever come out.

Phone calls made to utilities, etc., but not all were reached---typical business stuff. We'll try again tomorrow.

Probably the greatest things today have been the unbelievable outpouring of care and love that have been offered by people close and far. Please know how much we appreciate hearing those kind and supportive words. They are by far the biggest help to us right now. Email and blog comments are probably the best way to communicate. As much as we love talking to everyone, we just don't have the energy to return the number of phone calls that have been made to us. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to all of you!! We are absolutely blessed by the care and kindness of so many. It's almost overwhelming. We love you all! Thank you!

We may have a house to rent in about a week. Another miracle. It's a longer story, but I'm not going to write about it right now.

Now the bad news:
We are being evaluated, but we have NOT been declared a disaster area as of yet.

There is rumor of 5 inches of rain tonight from the back end of TS Fay. ~sigh~

Tropical Storm Gustav is headed on a path that is projected to give us A LOT of rain (per the weather channel a few minutes ago.) ~sigh~

The plans for tomorrow:
We are hoping to get another boat lined up. We need to get back in (yes, another fun day in the muck) and try to salvage what is still retrievable in the higher kitchen cupboards (dishes, etc), up in the closets, and on some of the bookshelves and pictures on the walls. With the projected rain, the water level inside could go higher. Ick!

We also need to see what is happening in the barn. We have some tupperware containers on the higher shelves, but most of Dave's workshop is under water (per the reports of those who braved the chest-high waters to rescue the chickens).

With every day that passes with the water staying in the house, the greater the loss. We are hoping that the flooring will hold the pool table until we can retrieve the stuff stacked on it. We're afraid of collapse and it being stuck in the crawl space. The piano is near the pool table, so you know the flooring is being stressed.

Well, we have been kindly invited to eat homemade pizza for dinner--yum!!, so off we go!

I'll report more as I know more!

Thanks again for your loving words of support---we are SO blessed. And, thanks to all who are helping with this mess. Believe me, we pray that no one ever has to go through this!!!!