Right now, I'm emotionally drained. I've had to be in this mode of absolute seriousness, cold and brutal feelings and decisions. So much has happened since I left you all last night, my whole world has changed.
So, where did I leave off. . . Remember how last night I told you about the severe rain and how it started to flood my porch? Within an hour after, the rain had starting falling so heavy that it made a waterfall on the side of my home, right in front of the door. I had just gone over to my sisters apartment to tell her dinner was almost ready when it happened. When I returned to my home, I immediately saw the water pouring down my door. I raced in to get my phone, so I could take pictures of the damage. Once I got enough, I ran back to my sisters to tell her what was going on. My house had begun to flood.
Our friend who had came over to help me with math had taken apart my desktop and got it off the floor as soon as he saw the water creep in. We thought it wouldn't get in too far, but it just kept rushing through the door. We went into panic preservation mode. All the books, electronics, and other important things had to get off the floor, now! There were five rows of books shelves, each with their bottom shelf filled with books. My editor and I have a lot of books, and they are all important to us, well, the same could be said about all of our things. We managed to get all the bottom shelves clear, however some books got a little damage on them. We cleared the floors of any important items and spread them to wherever they would be safe. Our bed is covered in books, and I hope they will be safe.
All in all, our home only had about a one to two inches of water in it. We managed to keep it away from the bedrooms as much as we could, however my bedroom still got quite a bit of water all over the carpets. I found a drain next to our hot water heater, which might have saved my home. I cleared any junk out of the way of the drain and it sucked all of the water away. I was able to push water from other places of the house to the drain, hopefully saving it. However the carpets are pretty much destroyed, I don't know if I can save them, and letting them sit for a few days soaking wet while the rain clears isn't going to be good for them.
During the heaver parts of the storm, the creek that flows behind our row of apartments completely overflowed and rushed into the complex two buildings down. The basements were completely destroyed. My sister and her roommate were trying to help those people as much as they could before the buildings were completely flooded. My sister said that she saw one lady who she was helping, she had two dogs and right after she got one out of the house, a door was busted through from the water, and crushed her other dog. I have great sympathy for her, and wherever she is now, I hope she's doing ok. Hearing that broke my heart. The rest of the people who lived in those homes, well, most of everything was destroyed in the flood. There really isn't much else anyone can do at this point.
Over the next few hours, we spent our time packing. "What is important to me, what do I need to bring" was all that was going through our minds. We didn't have much time, and we needed to collect everything that was important to us. Besides our essentials, we needed to get everything for our cats to be able to survive. Littler box, food, food bowls, and the cats themselves. We needed to be ready to throw them in my car, and we did as soon as the evacuation order hit. A fireman knocked on our door around 4am, saying we needed to get out ASAP. He told us that an assisted living home across the street was taking in refugees. So, my editor, my sister, our friend, my sister's roommate, and myself crammed all of our animals in our cars and fled to safety. I had sent our roommate out with his cat an hour before, so that he could get to safety.
The people at the building we all stayed at were kind enough to offer one private room for all thirteen of us (7 cats, 1 dog, and 5 people). It took us a while to all settle in, mostly from us joking about the absolute shit storm we just witnessed. There may also have might have been talk about eating people. But we all managed to fall into some kind of sleep by 5:30, right when a nurse came by to tell us that they were bussing people out to a better place and we needed to leave before 9am. It was a really rough morning. We had to reload our herds into our vehicles. My sister's roommate had left us at this point to stay with a friend of hers, and she took her cat with her. My sister went back to see what kind of damage we faced. Wile we brought our friend back to his apartment by the college to see if there was any damage. All he had was a backed up toilet.
We made our way back to our apartment complex, and to our surprise, nothing else got damaged! My sister was the luckiest of all of us, since her house was completely unharmed. We threw all the animals in her home and tried to compose ourselves. Our roommate had left his shelter early and headed back to our home, and was sleeping when we got there. We had cut the power for our apartment just incase, and I am concerned about my fish, but I think they will be ok as long as I can get back to them to feed them. My sister was supposed to fly out this afternoon for a concert, and as much as she didn't want to leave, she couldn't let the money go to waste. I dropped her off at the bus station, as well as dropping off our friend back at his home. He contacted his parents and is going to be saying with them until all this gets cleared up.
My editor and I took a little nap until the storm was supposed to kick back up. I managed to take a shower, as futile as it seems during a rainstorm, which made me feel a lot better about, everything. We kept getting more and more flood alerts for the town, so we decided it was time to abandon ship. I had gotten ahold of my godmother that morning and she said we and all our pets were welcome to stay with her. So, we thee our stuff and the cats into our cars and headed for her home. She hasn't had any flooding near her area, and I hope it stays that way.
So, here we are. Safe and sound at my godmother's house. She cooked us a fabulous meal and offered her two spare rooms to us and our pets. This is going to be an interesting night, with 6 cats and a dog all in this small room again. But, my back hurts and I'm very sleepy. I'll post some of the pictures later. Tomorrow we head back in town to monitor the damage, and possibly clean it up. My mother said she is going to come into town as soon as the storm is gone to help us with all the legal aspects of this whole thing.
I don't know how to feel about this whole thing. I'm scared and angry and I want to cry, but I feel if I did, it wouldn't make me feel any better. I can't let this whole thing bring my down!
Well, lets hope for the best.
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