Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Wellllllll....we want be wallpapering today, our house is full of water (Part l - The flooded house)

Afternoon Sweet Friends
*
Well, I finally have all the pics loaded
and am ready to go!!
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***
It was on a Saturday morning, July 28, 2001,
to be exact. We had not planned on being home.
*
Our daughter, then a teenager, was out of town
at a beach house, with a friend and her family.
We thought it a great opportunity to go to Gainesville
to see some of our dearest friends and our son, who
was then living there, and attending Univ. of
Florida. Our friends wound up not being home,
and our son wound up having to work all
weekend, so we resigned ourselves to staying
home and wallpapering the kitchen
*
We were up till around 3 a.m. preparing the
kitchen; clearing off the countertops, packing
stuff in boxes, moving the microwave to a
different spot, that would be out of the way,
yet still useable, and wiping down the walls
and baseboards. We finally retired for the
evening being a bit more excited about
doing the wallpapering the next day.
*
I awoke about 8 a.m. to go to the bathroom,
and came back and sat on the edge of the bed
and sleepily looked out into the house, (our
bed thankfully was not positioned where it
is now) I remember looking at the floor
and thinking Wow, the sun is sure coming
in funny this morning and the floor looks so shiny,
then the thought hit....why would the floor
be so shiny??? My next thought was "Water",
so I quickly made my way to the bedroom
door and quickly found out that it indeed,
was water. the carpet was already nice
and squishy, as you can see below.

*

I stood there momentarily, still half asleep, while hubby
was still sleeping, and said Babe, Wake up!!
He woke up and I said......We aren't going to be doing
any wallpapering today our house is full of water.
*
He said What!!! And jumped out of bed, we both
headed out towards the kitchen, Jimmy thinking it
might have been some plumbing he had fixed a
week or so before, headed to the sink in the kitchen,
but by the time we got to the end of the counter
I could hear sounds of water coming from the other
side of the house.

*
To our amazement the water was running
thru out house just like a little creek with
current and everything. It was ankle deep
as we made our way over to the bathroom.
We walked across the house......(right across
from where you see the couch, was the area I
was looking as I was sitting on our bed but
there was also a cabinet sitting there on that
wall, so I couldn't see all that water at the time.
This picture was actually taken after we found
the source of the water and turned it off.
That is why there is no ripples in the water.



When we reached the bathroom it was dark so naturally
Jim went to turn on the light but I grabbed his arm,
he was still half asleep, and I was afraid we might be
electrocuted. We could now hear the water rushing.
He thought it was okay to turn on the light so guess
he was right cause we are still hear to tell about it!!
This is what we discovered.
A crack in the toilet tank!!



Hopefully, you can click on it and make it larger,

but the toilet tank had actually cracked and the
water was just running and running, because
it would refill and then refill the tank again and
again. Jim then turned off the water as quickly
as possible, and our creek current immediately
stopped, so we moved on to see what else
had happened.




As we looked into our living room it looked just like
a kiddie wadding pool. The carpeting was actually
floating. My darling hubby said, guess I'd better
get the "Shop Vac" to which I replied "are you kidding,
this is not a job for a shop vac, we need
a professional service that knows what to do".

Amazingly God had prepared me for this event,

3 years before it happened!!
We had friends years ago, that had this happen to
them, and I never thought at the time, to ask them
what they did or who they called, but about 3 yrs.
prior to this event, someone had told me you could
have rugs dyed. I had a large area rug and wanted
to find out if it was possible to dye it and what it
would cost, so I had gone thru the yellow pages,
and in doing so saw this company called "Servpro",
and their ad said they did emergency water cleanup.
I remember thinking oh, they have professional
services that do that..........that's is what Sue & Gary
must have done.


So upon seeing this mess, the name Servpro sprung

to my mind, so I got the phone book out and looked
up there number, then decided I better call our
Homeowners Ins. first, so I did, and told them who
I wanted to call and they said fine, they work with
them all the time. So I called, meanwhile, Jim and
I ran around moving as much stuff as we could, trying
to get it out of the water or prevent the water
from getting to it, mostly it was too late, it had
seeped under the walls into the closets and into
the bedrooms, it even went under the kitchen
cabinets and into our bedroom closet.







It also ran like a river thru the whole house and
into the kitchen and out the kitchen door and
into the garage and down our driveway.
A Sight to Behold!!
Then Servpro arrived promptly at 9:15 a.m. and
honestly, They were like "Angels of Mercy", Really!!
*
We had no idea where to start, they just
come in and take over.
*

Once they got here, I was standing and
watching them from the dining room as
they started in my daughters bedroom.
They were just cutting up the carpeting
and padding and stuffing it into huge garbage
bags, then they would take it outside and
come do another one. As I stood watching
all this, a strange peace came over me.
and I had a knowing it was the answer
to a prayer from just one week earlier.
My hubby didn't even know about it !!
*


We had been in our house over 
20 years, and

our carpeting was getting pretty worn, it actually
had held up pretty well for a long time mainly
because we had all of the hard flooring thru
the main walkway areas, but........
We really needed new carpeting, so I
prayed and asked the Lord to please help
us, because I knew there was no way we
could afford to do it, with one kid in college

and another one about to go.
*

As I stood there........... I knew.....
 this was God's answer,
but I could never have fathomed all He

would do!!

*


It was so good that we had cleared all the counters
off, because we had to empty all the dishes out of
our china hutches so they could move them, and
guess where we put them all!

*
As they went room from room cutting 
out the carpeting

I knew that those rooms where going to get new
carpeting, and I was overjoyed at what our Lord
was doing for us. Poor Jimmy was having a very
hard time with our home being turned upside down,
it was not at all like the day we had planned,
and he still didn't know about my prayer yet!
So he was having a hard time understanding
why I seemed to be so okay with it.





It is funny how at first you walk into the room
 and think oh, this room is fine, but as soon
 as you put a foot on the carpeting you realize 
itis saturated.
You can see the footprints here on the rug.
*
That rug that I was gonna have dyed got
 big burgundy stains on it from the furniture
 legs bleeding onto it, so it had to go too!





You can see where I am standing,
 that is our garage door and where
 the water was draining out to the
driveway.
*

Servpro cleaned up everything and put big fans
in here to dry it out. They sounded like B-52
bombers, you couldn't even hear yourself talk.
They also hook up these humidifiers to all
your sinks to help pull the water out of the air.
*
The only carpeting they didn't remove was
in our bedroom and closet.
*
We wound up having to go to a hotel,
fortunately, La Quinta Inn take pets.
We had a lil Schnauzer then, named Zippy.
So we packed a few things and we went to the hotel,
as we pondered & wondered how and what was gonna
happen next..................
*
Stay tuned tomorrow to find out...........
*
Blessings and Hugs,
Nellie




Click here for Part 2

1 comment:

  1. First of all, Nellie, nice job of resurrecting your photos! You could have told the story without them but it would not have had the same impact. Unbelievable! What overwhelming damage! We have had water damage twice in our home but nothing of this magnitude.

    One time our inside laundry room spring a leak in the water pipe to the washer. I had a torent of water rushing out of the laundry room and heading directly across the hall to our step down family room. The pipe was old and rusting and I could not turn the water supply off. I called Jim at work in a panic and he told me to call 911. I did and they had a fire engine out in abut five minutes. They took care of everything and were so nice. It was amazing. Lesson learned...don't turn on the washer and leave the house. I was about to walk out the door when it happened. Waht a blessing to have been there. The swift action of the fire department saved us from any permanent damage that time. Another time our dishwasher over flowed and that was a bigger mess resulting in some wonderful improvements to our home like refinished hardwood floors! Every cloud has its silver lining they say!

    Looking forward to part 2! It is uncanny how many shared experiences we have had.

    Love, B

    ReplyDelete

Special thanks to all who take the time to leave comments..........They are very encouraging and very appreciated. I enjoy every one of them so much!!
May the Lord Bless You!!
Nellie

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