As I was sitting on the couch this lazy Sunday afternoon, I realized it has been a year since our home was flooded and our life (as we knew it) was forced to change.
I couldn't help think how truly blessed we are. As I have said before, I would never ever wish this experience on anyone. I still feel the same, but I must admit, we have learned a lot over the past 12 months. We have learned to fill our hearts with gratitude. We have learned to accept service from others. We have learned that we must be humble and move outside our box of comfort.
We have learned that the greatest things in life are not things.
We are blessed to the moon and beyond. We have family and friends who we love, what more could we ever ask for?!....may we never take our lives, our family, our friends, and our home for granted ever again. Life can change in an instant.
Please bear with me as I recant our experiences. I will try to include pictures that have not been posted before.
On Saturday, August 23, 2008, Tropical Storm Fay roared through northern Florida and southern Georgia at a mere 4 mph, leaving 33 inches of rain in a 24 hour period and many, many people displaced from their homes--us included.
I took this short video of the rain about an hour before we were forced to leave - you can here the frogs croaking in the background.
Here are some pictures of that eventful day before we were forced to leave our home, for the last time, shortly before 8pm in the evening...
This is the front of the house about an hour or two before we left. You can see the water starting to cover the front grass.
This tree fell the night before. It actually fell rather well--it took out only one panel of the fence. If it had fallen differently, it could have damaged more than just the one panel and taken out our cars that were parked under the carport at the time. At this time, Dave was pulling our pop-up tent trailer out from the back yard. He drove it over to Stef and Danny's house and then came back.
By the time he got back from taking the trailer over to their house, the water was already coming up from the backyard
Then it REALLY began to pour...this picture is blurry, but I thought it was neat how you could see the streaks of rain. This was about when Dave gave me 15 minutes to get out. Much more time than that and the water would have been too high for us to get our Tahoe out.
This picture was taken moments before we left. You can see how it had reached the fence and it was climbing up the stairs. It was covering the first step and approaching the top of the second step...
ONE YEAR AGO TOMORROW, August 24, 2008
The next morning, this was the view of the road to our house....it was only passable by boat...
Our mailbox and the entrance of our property...
A view of the house...
Inside...
The barn was over half submerged. Thankfully several men came out and rescued our very frightened chickens...
Yes, we are blessed indeed...this was bad and traumatic, but it could have been so much worse!
Thanks to everyone for your words of comfort and love....those were truly the most appreciated things we have received.
We love you!
