Emmett, EMILIO, Emma..RIP sweet Emily

[JangoMom]

Hey! glad to hear all is well with everyone

 

[Tonja]

Please do not lock this thread. Geico and Emily are fine but we are going through a huge ordeal right now. Our home flooded with 8 and 1/2 feet of water from the basement to the 2nd step from the top at the first floor...clean up is slow as many of our roads are gone. Still going through stuff to see what is salvageable and what is not. Lost all my Halloween and Christmas stuff and so much more. Sheets, towels blankets and stuff all gone that were stored. Saved all my photos thank Heavens but what a mess...had to clean out 2 1/2 feet of mud from the basement and bleach the walls with fungicides and got sick from that. So please bear with me while we go through this.

It was between 3 am and 3:40 when my dog starting barking, and I woke up to glass breaking. I ran through the house to see if someone was trying to break in and didn't see anyone or anything. So went down the basement stairs and hit the landing at the bottom and the water was already knee deep so got the basement door open and the water was rushing in like a fast waterfall through one window where the window well washed out from all the rain. I could do nothing to stop it so ran upstairs to the office and grabbed my phone and called the fire department. They came out and by that time the culvert out back overflowed and it looked like rapids racing through our yards. Firefighters had to rig up life lines to get to our gas meters to turn off the gas to the houses.. By 10:30 to 11 am the water was receding rapidly back out the sump pump and was down to the basement level leaving 2 1/2 feet of mud,,lost almost everything in my basement including the water heater and furnace but those are now replaced and running. 3 churches pitched in to help 6 families on my street to help clean up so got my basement cleaned up, lost the carpeting coming up the steps and through the hallway and family room, wall board, and all the electricity down in the basement has to be redone. Had to take all the insulation out of the basement also and had to remove the 3 windows that broke from the pressure of the water rushing through. So got down there in the basement with lots of help and got the mud out, bleached the concrete walls, still have some cleanup to do on the floor down there, got all my stuff into the garage and in dumpsters if it could not be salvaged. Churches brought in food to us and water which was a big stress reliever since we had to eat and no way to cook. Our water boil order was just lifted so 7 days with contaminated water. During the mess hubby slipped in mud and broke his left wrist and has surgery on it tomorrow, I cut the tip of my little finger almost off but I am ok. We put in a claim to FEMA with all the rest of my neighbors affected and will have our checks in 7-10 days. Our claim was put in day before yesterday and the agent was here yesterday and put the paperwork through last night. FEMA has been wonderful and were amazed at the cleanup we have already done on our homes instead of sitting around with the oh woest me attitudes..the whole community pulled together to help me and 5 other families on our street affected. Im going to post some pictures. Emily and Geico and the dogs did great through this and em and geico are still growing up. Never lost power, just our gas so they were fine in their tanks with their lights and stuff. 2 days after the flood we flooded a bit again with more rain but it was just a large puddle in the basement nothing major. Got that all pumped out as much as we could. So its been a harrowing 7 days. We are fine, all of us thank God since it could have been so much worse. We got 8 1/2 inches of rain the night we flooded and 7 more the next day. It was bad, the day after we were all out sandbagging and digging run off trenches and burms to divert more water from our homes. it really was bad for 2 solid days and again it rained yesterday but no flooding.

The start of the storm that hit Colorado as seen from a plane..this is what caused all the flooding


My basement after the water went down insulation everywhere

My basement left in a mess

If you look close you can see the waterline on the wall coming up the steps from basement
\

 

[zandi202]

That is so terrible! My heart goes out to you!

 

[Tonja]

Thanks Zandi! We are almost all cleaned up...just washing what we could save which wasn't much but, the important thing is that we are all ok on this street. Some lost their lives in this and others everything they own. We are lucky we could get out and get the gas shut off and do what we needed to. it could have been so much worse as it never reached the first floor of the house.

 

[athenacp]

Oh my goodness gracious me!!!! I am so sorry about all this, thankfully no one in your house lost their life, I have heard about all this....prayers your way!

 

[Tonja]

thank you, we are good just washing up stuff we could save which is not a whole lot. Saved my raggedy ann and andy I have had since I was 3 and my lambchop from the sheri lewis show and my certificate from 1960 for crossing the atlantic on the uss darby also saved my dads baptism certificate

 

[beardie parents]

We are praying for you out here in dry AZ. We had a lot of rain this year, compared to what we normally get, but nothing like you got. I'm glad you didn't have to evacuate. That would have been soo much more stressful. Remind me, where in Colorado are you? I have a good friend that used to live outside of Colorado Springs in Security. I'm really glad you only lost that which can be replaced. Sheets, towels and stuff can be replaced, you dad's baptismal certificate can't, pictures can't.

 

[sweetiepie9]

OMG Tonya, I'm so sorry to see what happened to you and so many others. As Lori said, everything lost is replacable, you & yours are not, so I'm so grateful you're all safe. What a mess to have to clean up, though, you must be hurting from all that activity. Glad Geico and Em were able to keep their lights on & so glad the flood didn't make it up to your 2nd floor and that your community helped you out. Also glad the claim will go through soon and you'll be able to replace everything. So fingers crossed, no more big rains in your area. Thanks for the update, if by chance your thread gets locked, just PM me and I'll unlock it right away.
Take care, all of you, good luck to your husband on his surgery tomorrow.

 

[Tonja]

Thank you both so much. You are absolutely right, stuff is replacable but, its still heartbreaking watching your stuff being hauled off to the dump...especially my Halloween and Christmas decorations that I loved so much. Yes I was able to save pictures and family heirlooms which will now stay upstairs with the family Bibles where they should have been in the first place. In retrospect though we got off lucky compared to those in Lyons, and Estes Park..parts of Boulder and Longmont. To answer your question I am in a little town between Longmont and Denver called Frederick. We are not to far from the Wyoming border so we are well north of the Springs. Most of the mess is cleaned up now thanks to the Churches that helped us. I am just waiting to take him to surgery..he has to check in at 11 so I best get myself in gear and feed Emily and Geico. I will try to post some pictures of them today after we get back and I run a few errands once he is settled. We should be home no later than 6 I hope but taking my laptop with me. So I will keep up with this from now on. Thank you all for the support, it really means a lot to me as it helps to get through this.

 

[JangoMom]

OMG Tonja! I'm so glad you and your family are ok. I'm sorry you lost some of your stuff but as others have said, they are replacable. Glad it only got your basement and not the rest of the house and that you got woke up and was able to get the gas turned off too. Not sure if you ever heard of the Great Johnstown Flood ..there were 3 (1889, 1936, 1977).. well that is where I lived growing up.. the outskirts of it.. the only one i've been in was the flood of '77 and I remember sitting on our basement steps watching the water rise.. it only got our basement as well but I remember all the mud and the cleanup afterwards..My gram and pap's house was destroyed and they never did find their car.. I was only 5 at the time but it's something that you don't forget. Sorry to hear your hubby fell and broke his other wrist.. that's just awful Glad your electric stayed on so Em and Geico didn't have to go without lights and it was so nice of the community and churches to help out the way they did. I have a cousin that lives in Colorado too.. not sure where and i'm not sure if the flood affected him in any way since he hasn't really said anything about it. Again, glad you're all ok *hugs*

 

[Lindz0518]

Glad everyone is ok in your family, and on your street. There has been massive flooding in my area in the past 2 months but nothing that even compares to your ordeal. Glad that cleanup is going well! Definitely keeping you guys in my thoughts!

 

[morphmom]

Oh my dear goodness!!! What a horrible ordeal! I can't imagine how you must have felt. I'm just so glad that everyone's ok. What an amazing photo of the storm. It's breath taking a terrifying all at once. I've often thought of putting together a reptile emergency kit. This is a reminder of nature's wrath. I'm buying hand warmers a.s.a.p. Thank you for sharing this. big hugs to you and yours.

 

[BrendaKay]

Holy WOW! Tonja so sorry for what you've been through! I've barely watched the news but did hear about the flooding.

Like holly, I've thought about an emergency plan too. I always have a cat carrier I can get to QUICKLY (like not buried in the attic somewhere) for the cats, but I need to be sure I have basics for Zilla.

 

[beardie parents]

I'm sorry you lost all those decorations that were important to you. Are all of them replaceable? Or did you have something unique to a certain year that's very difficult or impossible to replace? I hope not. You had some really good decorations and I know it would be very expensive to replace all them.

 

[Tonja]

I lost all the animatronics I bought last Halloween and most everything else. All I could save were my zombie babies and lost all my Christmas ornaments, trees, and village. The good thing is that I saved all my pictures from throughout the ages and some wedding and obituary stuff which is now in the family Bible.

The casket I built with the crying widow draped over it is lost, my nun and priest I made are gone along with all my life sized zombies, lost the wolf I made, lost all my spotlights and lights, lost all the ground breakers but one. So I wont be replacing them or decorating for Halloween anymore...we lost thousands in Halloween and Christmas along with household stuff like my rotisserie and my roaster, a lot of camping stuff, 2 bookcases, all my cookbooks, and sheets towels and blankets. Lost a lot of crafting stuff and lost my cocker spaniels <gruffy's> baby book which I am heartbroken over. As you can see everything in the basement was covered in mud and clay. I saved what I could and tossed the rest. I cried with my neighbor Tonya <yep there are two of us next door to each other> as they carted off the dumpster with our things. I still, after two weeks, cry and am terrified everytime it rains now. Get my windows replaced today so that will help a bit with worry over someone coming into the house through the basement.