The Flood

Well, our house flooded. Yep, around 4am I woke to the sound of rain hitting deep water on our deck and thought I should go check it out. Sure enough, water had just started seeping through the french doors in our bedroom. I ran to get towels thinking surely I could dam it up. As I ran to the living room to check those doors I saw my parents were up already and they immediately started helping me in my rescue efforts. Poor Anthony had to work till 2am the night before and was quite delirious about what was happening but he pitched in anyways. We realized we were fighting an uphill battle as we saw about 4 inches of water on the other side of the door. No way were we keeping that out. We ended up with about an inch of water along the entire wall. Here is the living room....
All we could do was wring out towels into trash cans and dry them and use them again. Our wet vac is currently not working. Please notice the puddle the towel is dripping on, that water is making WAVES...

It went clear under the bed all the way to the other side of the room...

You can see here how close the water came to our front porch (just a few feet away). Notice the water stops by my new garden gnome, maybe he's good luck keeping mother nature at bay for me? :)

Here is our street at daylight. Keep in mind it's receded about 15 feet by this time.

Looking out across the street. Check out that truck in the distance. I saw him trying to air it out with a fan today...

The water came up about an inch or two onto the silver part of Anthony's tire rim. My neighbor said this was the worst flooding she has seen in 34 years living here. We got NINE INCHES OF RAIN in 12 hours!!!!!!!The backyard was a lake, here is the area where the french drain is located. Great job, french drain. (I'm pretty sure that is why I never installed them, ha!!). Checking today, it's full of mud.
Another look at the living room. The water ran clear back into the hallway and 3-4 feet into the guest bedroom carpeting. Sleeping bags & down comforters couldn't stop this water!

As you can imagine we were constantly brainstorming on how to stop the water. Since we didn't have any sand bags my mom suggested using the mulch bags I had stored on the driveway. I thought it couldn't hurt so I braved the storm in my gym pants and baseball cap to move the 5 bags to the back yard. My back still hurts.

I really think the bags helped, atleast I have to believe I didn't venture into ankle deep water for nothing...

Trying to air out the sleeping bags. They are still out there...

So now we are assessing the damage and hoping for the best with the flood insurance. I think the wood floors will have to be replaced as well as the carpeting. I'm just happy we were all home safe and sound and not out in the storm. AJ slept through the whole thing and was actually excited about all the furniture being moved out of the rooms, more play space! Here he is with his Dad taking advantage of the breakdancing floor. Don't worry, I sanitized first with my steam mop!