Natural Disaster Stressors (May 2010 Flooding)

These are pictures from my apartment overlooking our town that is soon to be engulfed completely with flood waters.  To explain how deep the flood waters got, I ask that you look at the bottom picture.  To the left hand screen to the window that is lit up.  When the waters finally came with full force it was in the middle of the window.  If you look on the right of the screen at the corner building you could have only seen the top of the door.  I watched a dumpster float down the street along with other various large objects.  My two children and I watched it come from both directions.  I knew that I was safe because I was on the second floor or at least I hoped so.  However, my van was not so fortunate.  I kept asking my children not to stand near the windows because I was afraid they would end up seeing a dead body float down the street and was not prepared to explain that to them.  In the pictures you can see the fire department evacuating people in lower level apartments.  My phone was ringing off the hook my mother was terrified for me.  Everyone was calling me wanting a description of what the town looked like.  I was trying to hold my own and assure my children that we would be alright.  I am terrified of water and the only thing I clung to was that I lived on the second floor and water could not get my children or I.   My brother Adam is on the fire department and was evacuating people that night.  My mother sent him to check on us, I stuck my head out the window and he yelled up asking if we were alright and if we wanted to go to mom's house I said, "No."  When I saw him step out of the fire truck, I was relieved but scared the water was waist high on him and he is a little over 6 foot tall.  The water was all the way up the middle of the fire truck's grill.  The firefighter driving the fire truck had to back the truck out of the street and up the hill to battle the rushing waters.   I think last facebook post I made before phone service went out was "What used to be a street in front of my apartment is now a river"  that was at 11:00 p.m.  I went to bed with flood waters still rising and I had resigned myself to the fact that my van was gone and possibly my children and I if the waters did not start going down.

I awoke the next morning with my father calling on his cell phone telling me I needed to come down and check my van out.  I walked down the steps and began to cry we were in a war zone. My father said, "The daycare is gone, everything is gone."   I checked my van out and luckily the flood waters had only got into the front part of the van with the way I had parked the building had shielded much of the flood waters.  I came back upstairs.  I then began preparing my children for what they would see when they went outside.    My children and I drove up the street all of the banks, post office, fire department, daycare, gas stations were covered in a slick brown mud and debris.  As a town we were shut off from the world, we couldn't get our mail, no phone service, some had no power, no money both of the banks in town were flooded.  The only thing you could use in town was cash because credit and debit card machines were all down.  There was only one gas station on the other end of town for people to use.  People had come together and began the long process of clean up.  I must say thank goodness no lives were lost just alot of personal belongings.

For weeks on end, people were scared of  what would happen if it rained again.  The town had a big 4th of July celebration clean up was done for the most part.  A week after the celebration the town was struck with flooding for the second time in two months.  What flooding had missed the first time it got in the second time around.  This flooding was a surprise, everything that was cleaned up got hit again as well.  I did not even know it had flooded until my Aunt called and said, "Amanda you need to look out your window," it had flooded in the middle of the night while we were asleep.  I began to cry my children were asking why mommy. I said we flooded again I don't know why.  My children were very upset.  It was hard enough to tell my children their daycare was gone the first time but to tell them again a second time was very upsettling. 


Today, we keep a close eye on the weather if it looks like it is going to flood people begin to move to higher grounds and take precautions.  I guess it is better safe than sorry.  From a personal standpoint my children are still not very sure about floods but they do ask everytime it rains if its going to flood again.