Irene, 8-28

Those who know me, know I love my state, but over all, I always have said (to some degree or another) that I love here because I can deal with snow and ice. Tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, not so much. We don’t *generally* have any of those things happen here. Oddly though, within the last couple of weeks, we have had all three. I’m wondering what’s going on.

If you’re interested in my story of Irene, here it is, if you could care less, then stop reading. I am writing this both to share my experience, however jumbled it may be at times, and to have a written record that I can share with my son later in his life when he’s old enough to understand just what we went through.

The timeline here is mostly somewhat accurate, but when you’re going through the second worst thing you can imagine in life, you forget to check your watch.

Saturday, almost any other Saturday, beautiful, sun is shining, life is ‘good’. We know Irene is coming, so we go out to clear our yard of stuff that may be affected by the wind, not really concerned about major flooding, but we neaten up, and put some stuff away, ya know, a major rainstorm coming, we can handle it. Almost everyone I see that morning while I’m at work has the same thinking I do, basically a large “pfft, maybe a little rain, but not worried about it…”

I go to bed Saturday night, expecting maybe power outages on Sunday, nothing huge. I woke up somewhere between 3 am and 5 am, hear it raining, I do my normal thing at that point (usually just really have to pee) and go back to bed.

Sunday morning I sleep in and I crawl out of bed at about 930. I have my coffee, hang out, go out and take a look at the river, which is when I started feeling a little nervous. The river was already a bit higher then I was expecting, but since I have never experienced a huge flood, I still didn’t think much of it. I meander over to my neighbor, D’s, to check on our water line, as it’s strung over the river. It’s still looking good, so I go home where I preheat the over to start cooking a pork loin, just in case the power goes out, we at least can have a decent lunch.

An hour later, call it about 1130/12, Jeff and I go back to our neighbors to check the water line again. The water line, again, looks like it has some time before it might be compromised, but Mom’s car we decide to move as the water is starting to rise a bit more. We come home, and Jeff gets Mom’s keys to go and move her car to the top of our driveway. On our way, we run into our local Fire Department, who strongly suggested that we evacuate, so I go home and pack up some things, and I tell mom and Kae to do the same. We still expect to stay at home, but beginning to have the slight worry that we might have to at least be prepared.

Minutes later, Jeff came running back to the house. Paraphrasing mostly here he said, “The water was almost up to her door, I am going back to try to help D get stuff out!”

I throw on my flip flops. We had *just* been there and the water wasn’t in his yard, and now suddenly it’s up to the door of Mom’s car?!?! I run up the driveway, and make my way across the road to D’s house, where he’s trying to get his camper and kayak trailer out. I asked him if he wanted me to grab his dogs while he did that, and he told me that he had time, and not to worry about it. I am standing at the bottom of his driveway, watching him move things from his yard, helpless while the water rises.

Mere minutes later the water is flowing up to his steps, and he returns from moving his camper. He doesn’t even park his car in the yard, the water is that high. He and Jeff make their way over to his house, where each comes out carrying a dog. He puts them in his car, and asks Jeff is he’s willing to make another trip to try to get his (left blank for his protection, no worries, nothing illegal.) Jeff agrees, and they go back to the house. By this time the water is up to Jeff’s thighs. I stand now in the middle of D’s driveway, waiting for Jeff and D to come back out, and they do, carrying (blank). Jeff gets back to the car, and D a few moments later. We load up the car, exchange cell numbers. I look at D’s house, and I know that we are experiencing something I have never experienced.

Jeff and I stand there a moment, watching the water rush by, I asked him, "am I allowed to worry now?" his answer was a simple "yes". For some reason, we both look to our right. At the edge of D’s yard the water seemed to crest, and Jeff and I turn and run home. I run in the door, and tell Mom to grab the dogs and go. I helped her get them in the car, and tell her to go up Bridgewater Hill, and we wouldn’t be far behind. I told Kae to get her and her brother into the car, and I run back and forth grabbing things we may need (she brought our bags out), such as water, food, sentimetals (the twins urns, dad’s ashes etc…). I look up and see another neighbor at our door, he told me the road we hope to evacuate up is washing out, Mom is up it, she is ok, and we need to hurry. I look at Jeff, he’s getting computers apart, and kiss him, tell him to hurry, I take one last look at my home, and up Bridgewater Hill me and the kids go. If I were to put a time to our leaving I would say about 1.

Yes, in the span of about an hour we went from, “We’ll be ok” to “Get out!”.

I found myself at our neighbor up the hills house, and we sit on their porch, watching it rain, I am holding Liam, Mom is in a slight state of shock, and Kae is, well, not sure, she was hard to read. I had driven by their house at first (not sure why, I mean our neighbor DID tell me Mom was there and safe, so I should have realized where she was) so by the time I eventually ended up at their house Jeff had caught up. We all just sat there, waiting. For what, I don’t know. I know were were all soaked to the bone, and none of us cared. J’s wife A opened a bottle of her wine, and a bottle of “our” wine, and so I didn’t hold back. I went for it. Jeff checked the house at one point (it’s within walkng distance), and said the water was up to D’s windows. Our house was so far untouched. I was trying to talk to people, but my phone wasn’t working right, neither was J’s or A’s. I could get the occasional text, and when Jeff would call to update during his walk down, the call would drop.

About 5 Jeff went down to check the house again. In a nutshell this is what the conversation was. D’s house “broke” while Jeff was at our house. He saw some of D’s furniture go down the river, while talking to me, water started pooling around his ankles from behind, which mean the beaver dam broke at the bottom of the hill. He told me, “If there is anything you want from the house, get it now.” My heart sunk, we had expected the house to make it, so when we couldn’t find the cats earlier, I hadn’t stressed it to much, but now, now I wasn’t sure the house would survive.

I left the kids with Mom and ran down the hill, I took my flip flops off about 1/5^th of the way there, I could run so much faster without them. Jeff met me at the bottom of the switchback (the bottom of the road we had evac’d up had washed out) and we went back to the house. The road was covered in water, it had collapsed up to the white line on the other side, and the rain still hadn’t let up. The river was up to the edge of the road.

We got to the house, and the yard was covered. There was but mere feet from the water line and the actually structure. The water was flowing from two directions, up from the river, and down the driveway from the beaver dam. I looked at Jeff and asked him how much time he would give me. I had 5 minutes. I asked him to grab the carriers, and I went running through my house, banging on anything possible to scare the cats out of their hiding places. The first cat I grabbed bit me 5 times, but I ignored it. I was able to rescue two more, at which point the water had risen yet again, and I was told my time was up. I had to leave 2 cats behind. I marched up the driveway, crying, screaming, bleeding, and lugging my 16 pound Syngi (in her carrier) on my shoulder Jeff was carrying the carrier that I put Mouse and Braveheart ( the one who bit me) in.

On our way back the road fell from beside us, it was now mostly to the yellow line, and the road we had evac’d up to was half gone. I was now in a state of shock. It was about 630 pm.

We went back to our neighbors, and I nursed my hands which got bit (which now hurt like all get out) and they had beds for us, so after a while we went to find our way to rest for the night, resigned that we weren’t going home yet.

(8-29 later)