Historic Flooding

We've been dealing with flooding since March here.

This is by far the worst we have ever seen.

The ongoing flood coupled with the head on collision my daughter had

due to a drunk person driving a black car in the dark 

with no headlights on a divided highway,

 I've not had much time to craft or relax. 

We've been trying to elevate possessions as much as possible in the house and garage.
We are an island now, the only way in or out is by boat.

The forecast does not look good:
     

View from my front porch, there is currently one foot of water along the flood wall with two more feet expected. The basement is flooded. The steel outbuilding in the photo has 3 1/2 feet of water in it now. 

There will be no posts from me for a while

and I have to step down from design team duties.

I did have projects made and blog posts set up for

the Love To Craft Challenge for the remainder of the year,

so you will see those the first of every month.

I just won't be commenting and voting for some time.

I will have no time or energy to devote to creating,

not to mention my craft room is in disarray

packed full of items from the lower level of the house.

I'm not sure how much longer I will stay at home. 

I may need to relocate at some point.

Definitely a long process to get back to normal

once the river recedes for good. 

Until then, I doubt I make much of anything.

Not being able to be crafty is going to drive me nuts,

on top of everything else !

Oh, the stress and uncertainty - and STENCH ! 

Thanks for all of your nice comments 

and for following my crafty adventures.

Take care.

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UPDATE 6/10/2019

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=142622780244685&set=a.104164264090537&type=3&theater

Photo is a still shot from a 360 drone video shared publicly on facebook. 
I hope the link above to it works, it is jaw dropping.  

The river crested here two days ago,

shattering the all time record for 2nd highest flood.

We've been in flood since March actually,

with the last crest in early May tying for 

the old second place record!

This crest was 3 feet less than the Great Flood of 1993.

It has fallen just 4".

It'll be a long, slow process and more rain is on the way

again this week, prolonging it.

We managed to keep the main level of the house dry, hooray!

Levees broke, causing the crest to fall by a foot.

This was good news to us (of course not to all

of those behind the levees that lost so much)

because we knew our flood wall should keep the water

back at that depth. It did spring leaks here and there.

We have three pumps running nonstop to keep the water

from filling in behind the wall too much. 

The photo below shows my cat helping me check on them.

We have to do this day and night to make sure the

pumps stay ahead of the leaking water. 

The photo is a bit deceiving as there is easily two+ feet of water

against the outside of the flood barrier.

If it gives way, the water will cause significant damage

to the house.

Here is a photo of the basement full of water -

stinky! We did put some pool chemicals in it

to try to help with the smell. Blech!!!

There is a pump in here to help keep it at this level.

We don't want it to get deeper if possible

so that it gets into the electric box,

vents and such. 

It has to stay flooded otherwise the 

walls could cave in from the pressure.

We are getting sick from all of the must,

mold, stink, etc but can not leave because

we have to maintain the pumps

so the water doesn't get onto the main floor.

 

Trying not to think about what may be swimming in it....

thankfully I've not seen any snakes around the house.

If any of those came into the flooded basement,

my bag would be packed, moving out,

letting the river win. Nope, won't stay there 

if snakes move in!!!

Sitting in the middle of the road here,

there is 6 feet of water under the boat.

It gets as deep as 9 feet in places.

You can see the top to a metal car port

just to the right in the photo. 

Going to get basic supplies by boat

out to where a car is parked on high ground

is quite an adventure :)   It's a tiny boat. 

What's really scary (and I try not to dwell on it)

is that there is no way to get emergency services 

here in a timely manner. Everything has to be boated in or out.

There are also no working telephones.

Cell service is hit and miss and if we do get

a signal, it is always dropped. 

Forget mail, trash, etc - nothing like that gets in, obviously.

No hot water for bathing.

No laundry can be done.

No air conditioning. 

I heat water in the microwave to be able to 

hand wash dishes. We boat out every few

days to my moms to shower and get laundry done.

We have a generator for basic power needs 

if the main goes out.

 Right now, the water level

is being maintained just below the box so we still have service.

The bugs are awful, the smell is worse!

It is kind of like camping in a way. 

An experience for sure.

On top of all of that, I am incredibly sick

from breathing all of the mold, etc. 

That is what it has been like here

and will continue for some time.

5 out of the next 7 days are to be rainy,

so that isn't going to help much. 

Then there is the cleanup to follow. 

As bad as it is, 

I know that it can be much worse

and am so thankful that we haven't lost everything

like so many  people have.

This will be my final post for a while.
I thank you once again for following my crafty adventures,

hoping I may have inspired you a bit along the way :)