water walk and first look

Friday, Sept. 1^st, Wesley brought us back to my sister's house after we spent the night at their place, The Dragonfly venue. Early afternoon I got a text from Carolyn that Wesley was going to try to check out the Wharton Historical Museum to see if they took on water and since the museum is just down the road from our neighborhood, did I want to go with and see if we could get to the house. Yes!

So Wesley picked up Marc and I in his high water truck and we headed out to try. Richmond Road, also business 59, was blocked off by the police and even though I showed my ID proving that we had a reason to get down the road and the truck we were in was obviously capable of getting there, the officer would not let us pass. “You will need a police escort”, she told us, so we pulled into a parking lot while Marc called the Wharton police who told us, “You're in the county, call the county”. Right about then the officer who denied us passage walked over and told us that we might be able to get there through some of the smaller roads that didn't have roadblocks set up but 'you didn't hear it from me'.

Unfortunately there were only three roads that went through to where my neighborhood is in the county...the one we were on, the next main road one block over that was also blockaded, and the third on the far end which was blocked off because the bridge had washed out. Then I remembered a county road that sort of circled around through another neighborhood and came out on the other side of the road with the washed out bridge so that's where we went. The road was dry for the most part but then we reached a point where even it was under water but not so deep that Wesley wasn't willing to keep going as long as he could see the edges of the road.

This road makes a little squiggle before it makes the left turn that takes it back to the main road from which we could access my neighborhood and as we approached the squiggle the water continued to get deep and because it was muddy, the edges of the road were not visible. Wesley was still willing to continue but he was concerned about going off the edge and if we did that we would surely be fucked so I put on his rubber boots since I don't own any who lives in the country for nearly 8 years without owning rubber boots! and yes they were too big and climbed down out of the truck and walked in front of it finding the edges of the road. The water was about calf deep...five steps forward, then side stepping to the right counting my steps til I felt the grass, then side stepping to the left til I felt the grass, then back to center and five steps forward etc. and we continued that way as the water got deeper and deeper until it was almost up to my lady parts before it began to get shallower again. In this manner we navigated through the squiggle and the left turn until Wesley could see the edges of the road again and we continued unimpeded to the house.

The street was mostly dry but the yard was still flooded with about 6” still in the garage and the lower part of the house. Waded through to the door into the upper house to find it was dry with no evidence of water having been in! The wood floors were slightly raised at the edges, just a bit wavy from the sub-floor getting wet but not so bad it can't be lived with. We grabbed some clothes and my computer and headed back to my sister's house. We didn't have to repeat the path in as the blockade was just preventing people from going out of town, not coming in and by the time we got to it, it had been removed anyway.

I took no pictures this day.

next: work begins