Frankenstorm

For those of you that don't know, I live on an island (okay, it's more like a peninsula) along the Susquehanna River.  It's a quiet little neighborhood nestled along the river, with beautiful views and soil so fertile it grows tomatoes from the seeds of rotten ones that you ask your kid to throw in the compost bin, but in his laziness, he just tosses them into the garden.  Sounds perfect, huh?  I thought the same thing until last September when we met our first Isle of Que flooding.

Apparently with living on an island along the river comes flooding.  We found this out when Hurricane Irene tore up the East Coast and was followed by Tropical Storm Lee, that just shuffled along, dumping inches and inches of rain all over the state of Pennsylvania.  We went from expecting it to get up to our doors, but not into the house to getting a call from our landlord telling us that we might have 4 feet of water on our first floor. Shit. Shit. Shit.

With having no flood insurance, we started moving everything that we could carry upstairs and putting everything else up as high as we could get it. We woke up early the next morning to continue the process and were joined by Big Daddy's friend and my mom and sister.  The water was rising slowly so Big Daddy, my mom and BD's friend took our car and the kayaks out to the storage area.  In the half hour that they were gone, the water rose two feet and went from just covering our sidewalk to lapping at our door stoop, threatening to come in.  I was alone in the house with Nutt, Evel and Trid (my 13 y.o. sister), and I had to get them to safety.  I gave them each a life jacket, grabbed Nutt and we started wading through the foot and a half of river that was now covering our sidewalk.  We made it to the alley at the mid-point of our block and to higher ground, but that was the most terrifying 10 minutes of my life.  To say that water rises quickly is an understatement.  In the half hour that it took Big Daddy, the water came up so quickly that my mom almost lost her SUV and if we didn't have the lift on the Suburban (which I had previously called stupid and unnecessary), we would have lost it along with the camper that was about to become our home for the next seven weeks.  To say I had a stressful day would be an understatement.

The last shot of our little house before we left.  Helpless is the only word to describe it.

Side note here:  IF YOU ARE TOLD TO EVACUATE, GET THE HELL OUT.  Stuff is just stuff.  There will be people around to give you new stuff. Trust me, I know. I cannot begin to tell you how terrified I was while trying to get those kids through the water, and I would have never forgiven myself if something would have happened to any of them. I did A LOT of bargaining with God during this time. Hindsight is 20/20.  Just. Get. Out.

Anyway, we wound up with 25 inches of water on our first floor.  We lost our bedroom set, a desk, the kitchen table set and a few other things (like the hot tub that we had just installed and never got to use).  We gained mud.  So much effing mud.  And flood mud smells so different than regular earthy mud.  This is a bitter, acrid stink that clings to everything it touches.  It is mud that is mixed with oil and gasoline and anything else that it washed over and picked up along the way.  And there were inches of it in my freaking house and it was touching all of my stuff.  I felt so dirty and violated. 

The carpet was blue 72 hours earlier.

Found the hot tub in a farmer's field about a half mile from our house. It's still there is anyone wants it.

With the arrival of mud came the worst part...the cleaning.  I hate cleaning more than almost anything, especially mopping the floors.  We mopped, we hosed, we squeegeed and there was STILL MUD.  EVERYWHERE.  To this day (a year later), I still find it when I'm cleaning.  This stuff is oil based and nasty.  We ripped all of the carpet out and replaced the drywall from 36 inches down, but I still catch a whiff every now and then and my stomach feels like I had one too many shots of tequila. I flood is something I would not wish on my worst enemy and definitely not something I had ever hoped to do again.  That is why we bought a new house.  A house that was supposed to be ours on October 26, but had a shit tank too close to the drinking water for us to get the loan.  A house that should now be our on November 9, which is a week too late to avoid Frankenstorm.

My thoughts on cleaning.  Give me a Natty Light and leave me the Hell alone.

The items that people lost.  The dumpster in front of our house filled up so it wound up piling up on our sidewalk.

Effing Frankenstorm.  Apparently this monster is shaping up to be a doosie.  Hurricane Sandy is going to meet up with a storm coming down from the north and cause all kinds of havoc on the East Coast.  It's a slow moving storm that is going to hang around for about a week and offer up gale force winds, possibly snow and torrential downpours of rain.  Lots and lots of freaking rain.  What I've learned from Tropical Storm Lee is that slow moving storms with rain are the ones that brings flooding.  Lots and lots of flooding.  Shit. Shit. Shit. Again. 

The thing that is really getting to me is the anticipation.  I just want it to get here so we can get it over with.  Let it rain, let it snow, but please God, do not let it flood.  For the sake of my (and my family's) sanity, do not make me have to buy all new underwear again because the flood mud got it's hand all over the ones I already own.  While we have flood insurance this time around, I don't think I can handle living in a camper with my older kids and the wiser posteriors they've gained since last year.  So I will sit and twiddle my thumbs and try not to freak out until this monster gimps up on us.  What I wouldn't give for an angry mob with burning torches to send this bastard back to Hell right about now.