After the little flood in our basement, we spent the weekend ripping out the rain-soaked carpet and let the floors dry. We only have one more room to dry out and we should be good. Two of our good friends are letting us borrow their dehumidifiers and they are working like a charm!

We are now finishing the tear out of the 70's linoleum and vanity in the bathroom. It was on the chopping block anyway so the flood just sped up the process which was good (in that respect.) We'll have to replace small parts of the drywall but luckily not all of it.

The concrete was so wet underneath that the glue didn't even put up a fight when we lifted up the flooring. We did nearly have a fiasco with the installation of the commode (not a fan of the word toilet) but we remedied that situation, whew!

I'm keeping my budget at $200.00 for the basement bathroom fix and because of a few good deals, (I bought the vanity 2 months ago at Home Depot for $15.00 - floor model.) I am well under budget. So that leaves more to play with for the fun stuff like this bath mat I ordered. Priorities.

Flood story

On Wednesday the rain started. It was really starting to fall hard as I took Reese to a Doctor's appt. in Hershey.
I drove by a well traveled intersection and took note that the water was starting to accumulate.

Just as the appt. was ending I received a call saying that school was closing at 12:15 so I headed right over. I was only about 10 miles away and luckily I made it before many roads started to close. Traffic was building at each mile but fortunately our school was the first in the area to let out early so I made it rather quickly.

I was in the school waiting line for a few minutes when Belen and Charley made a mad dash to the car, along with some of their friends. The rain was so heavy that my windshield wipers could barely keep up and I had them on high; the setting that seems like they are spastically swishing back and forth.

There were more kids than my car could hold at once, so we made a few trips. With each trip a new road was closed and I wasn't about to take chances crossing a road that seemed to have too much water rushing over it. Although those situations can be a little scary, I felt that all would be well and the most serious road situations had already been identified. We all laughed in the car at how soaked everyone was and that one of the teen-agers had to sit atop Trae's carseat.

We looked in amazement at the level of water accumulated in our park. The tall swingset and slide that Blair and Trae play on were not visible anymore. We saw kids swimming in the amphitheater where we watch the free movies in the park.

By the time I returned home, there was about 4-5 inches of water in the basement bathroom and family room. You could hear the "squish squish" as we walked across the floor. After attempting to drain it only to see it fill up again, I called it quits. Jon called and said to just come over to the hotel before the roads got any worse. So we packed a few bags, and threw things in other rooms to keep dry.

A normally 15 minute drive took 2 hours but we arrived at the hotel. That intersection from earlier in the day was now completely underwater. The banquet seating from Pizza Hut was floating by and a car got caught up in the rush of water. Fortunately, the driver of the car made it out safely.

So we're still at the hotel waiting another day for the floor to dry. We ripped out the carpet in the rooms affected and we're looking forward to doing something new with them. A few months ago we began to purchase new materials to give the bathroom a make-over so this actually gave us the push we needed to do it.

So really, our perspective is that there are others with greater loss. Some houses were submerged and some people lost their lives. Our little problem is no where near that so I cannot complain in the least. I would feel so ungrateful.

We're good, we're happy and we have great friends whose offers of help are genuine. Lucky desu.