work begins

Saturday, the water had receded to the point that we could get to the house in my sister's car and we drove over there in the morning to get the rest of the dry goods groceries and stuff and to pick up our car which you might remember I had parked over at the shop the day the flood happened as it was the highest ground I could get to. Fortunately the water there only rose about 6” and the car was undamaged. 

the butterfly garden

the water lily pond is under there somewhere

the front flower bed

Drove back to Pam's and picked up Marc and we headed back to the house to start emptying the two rooms and getting ready for demolition removing the paneling in my in-house studio and the sheetrock and wet insulation from the walls in the back bedroom and small bathroom about four feet up, vinyl flooring hauled out and floor tiles scraped up. Over the course of the three day Labor Day holiday our son, daughter and son-in-law and grandson, and friends Gene and Brian came out to help us. We still had about an inch of water in the house so we started sweeping it out and moving out the stuff that was up high and savable and dragging out all the stuff that was damaged. Oh, and the smell was just horrible.

all my art books..muerta

my design research books..same same

It's been 10 days of continuous hard physical labor though about halfway through I did take a day off. We're living at my sister's house, generally get to our house about 10 AM and work til 6 PM and drag our sorry tired butts home to a great dinner ready for us to do it again the next day.

After the holiday, Gene and Brian and their friend Lee came out on Tuesday and hauled stuff over to the shop and worked in the shop all day dragging out the wet carpet there and in general doing as much clean up as they could as the shop got about 6” of water in it and I was finally able to hose out the floors in the house and wiped all the exposed wood down with vinegar. Wednesday another friend came and helped get the garage washed out and the stuff that was savable off the driveway.

Then I spent the next two days emptying the brick planters of stinky river soaked dirt, gravel, and brick pieces that whoever built the house thought was a great idea to build INSIDE the house. The dirt got spread out in the low spot beside the house, the dirty gravel got spread out on the driveway which was in need of it, and the brick pieces got chucked as far into the Wild Space at the back of the property as I could chuck them.

Then some of the floor tiles in the kitchen popped up and we discovered the sub-floor was wet (which is why the wood floors in the upper house are now a bit wavy) so those had to be all scraped up. Friend Wesley loaned us a high powered blower which we are using to help dry the sub-floor from underneath the house. 

Then I noticed the siding shingles were bulging on a corner of the upper house and pulled off a few of those to find some serious damage to the structure of the house and removing the sink and toilet in the little bathroom and the wallboard there also showed some major damage. 

That was last Sunday and this was more than we could deal with. Time to get a professional on board so I walked down to Rocky's house, our neighborhood carpenter/contractor, for an assessment. The siding on the house needed to come off all the way around and the shower had to be taken out before he could know exactly what the damage was and what needed to be repaired. So yesterday and today he and his crew worked on that and discovered another large area on the front of the house where there was a lot of rotten wood and squashed floor joists which is probably why the front door frame is out of square.

that pile of rubble used to be the shower

Marc and our grandson, who drives out nearly every day after he gets off work from his job in Houston, had cleared the yard of all the debris and hauled it over to the burn pile and mowed several days previous. The mosquitoes have been big, black, and fierce. Starting yesterday, I was finally able to address what is left of the flower beds. I'm slowly working my way around the yard raking debris into small piles as I go, discovering what survived and what didn't.

We've about got as far as we can get on the house now until FEMA comes out and inspects the damage and we see what they will offer us . We had no insurance or home owner's insurance. They do provide money grants which is what we are hoping for but probably all we will get is a low interest loan which we will decline. Not interested in borrowing money. Once we can turn our attention to the upper house and get it cleared out of all the stuff that has been moved in there, we can move back in and do the remodel at our leisure. Rocky will go ahead and repair the structural damage before the inspector comes but I will take plenty of pictures for proof, as if the obvious new repair isn't proof enough, and then he will do the minimal demolition over at the shop until such time he gets a breather and can demolish the entire built in part of the shop. He was headed to the lumber yard with a materials list when he left today and I'm waiting to hear from him to find out how much this is going to set us back.

Our street, like so many in the county and town, is a canyon of ruined possessions and construction materials piled high on either side. Many of the homes on my street were built entirely on a slab and they lost everything.

As bad as things are for us it could have been so much worse.

last: blessings in disguise