For those of you who haven't heard, our house flooded while we were in Kansas City for the weekend. We left Rhinelander on Thursday afternoon. Connie came out to the house on Thursday, came back out twice on Friday...and everything was fine. When she came into the house on Saturday afternoon, there was water everywhere. The poor cats were sitting on the stairs that lead up to the loft, and the water was so deep in the kitchen area that it was up over Connie's shoes. Well she threw all the cats outside and then left to call DJ...at that point our phones weren't working. DJ came out and shut off all water to the house and called us. He also called our insurance agent, and within three hours there was a restoration company on site pumping water out of the house. So far they have pumped out over 200 gallons of water. There are big green blowers all over the house, the carpet has been ripped up and the padding removed. There are also a couple of big machines that appear to be filtering the air in the house and removing the humidity. They have hoses running from them and draining into the bathtub.
Every room of the house is affected by the flooding, except for the loft, the master bathroom and the small sunroom area behind the fireplace.Anna's bathroom and bedroom are completely flooded. The master bedroom closet is completely flooded, and the master bedroom is about halfway flooded. The kitchen is about halfway flooded, with the wooden floors buckling. The living room is about halfway flooded. Downstairs is such a huge mess. The laundry room seems to have taken most of the water, which might be a good thing since there is a huge drain in the floor that probably drained a lot of the water. Unfortunately all of Kindra and Anna's clothing, as well as all of our towels and blankets, and all of the linens for the camper were stored in the laundry room. All of it is completely soaked, and since the ceiling in the laundry room collapsed, a great deal of it is covered in pieces of ceiling. Thank God we had a few outfits with us!! Even their shoes are soaked, and Pavan's. Poor Anna had to go to Mass on Monday wearing blue jeans, she was so embarrassed, especially since it was a special Mass for them to meet our new bishop! She also didn't have a heavy coat, justher hoodie and it was cold! Of course when I let everyone know what had happened they were very understanding, and yesterday I was able to find an old coat and a dress in her closet that weren't wet, so she'll be ok for the rest of the week until they get all of her clothing laundered. She showed up for gymnastics last night in a way too small leotard, which was actually pretty funny. One of the ladies had her daughter bring Anna a couple of leotards she'd outgrown recently, which was so nice!
Most of the living room downstairs is completely flooded...downstairs the water made it all the way across the house. So, the old hot tub room (now a workout room) is soaked, the sauna is completely soaked, Kindra's room is soaked, her bathroom is soaked...including all of the drawers and under her sink, Kindra's study is soaked, and the toy room is about halfway flooded. Also, part of the ceiling in the toy room collapsed. The basement definitely is the worst part, because the water was coming from the ceilings so everything got wet. At least upstairs only the items on or near the floor were soaked.
Yesterday we were at the house taking pictures and video and meeting with the restoration company and insurance agent. I was going through Anna's closet pulling out wet items and about it tears thinking about all of the stuff I needed to haul to the laundry mat and wash. Then the man from the restoration company came in and told me I didn't need to worry about any of it...they will take care of everything. They are even going to take all of the laundry and wash it for us!! That was such a relief to hear about that. Just being in the house was making me sick, the smell is horrible and my allergies were out of control. Now I just have to go out there every day to take care of the animals and see how things are going.
Right now we are staying at the Claridge in downtown Rhinelander. It's a couple of block from the historic courthouse, in an old neighborhood surrounded by big old houses. We are only a block from Anna's school, which is nice. We will be herefor at least a couple of weeks. Wehave a two room suite. One room has 2 queen beds, plus a rollaway for Anna. The other room is a large living room with a fold out loveseat for Kindra. It has a kitchenette with a nice sized fridge. There is a great pool room with games for the kids, and a wonderful restaurant downstairs. Amaya and I walked to the park (3 blocks down) this morning while they cleaned out room, and the library is right next door. It's nice being in town instead of 15 minutes outside of town! I miss having the animals with us, but we weren't able to find anywhere that would allow us to have all of them. Right now I can't even find Sweetie Pea, she's probably hiding up in the walls somewhere! I'm sure she'll feel better once they turn off all of those blowers, they are so loud!
I'd better get going. We are going out to the house to pick up a few things and feed the animals. Also going to grab our swimsuits...looks like Amaya and I are going to have the pool all to ourselves during the day!
By the way, I just have to tell you that the pictures don't even begin to capture the humidity in the house or the horrible smell...it's just overwhelming and so disgusting!! They are monitoring the air every day and I guess they go by the humidity levels in the air to determine when the house is dried out completely. Then they spray down some fungicide to keep molds from growing. Yuk!
More later,
Rebecca
No comments:
Post a Comment