The Flood

That little orange cone in the road is supposed to warn of what's ahead.
And it doesn't look too bad does it?

Hmmm...that's a corn field, it's not supposed to be a lake.

And look at that rushing river. Oh wait a minute...that's wasn't a river yesterday. That ditch didn't even have a drop of water in it just 24 hours before this picture was taken. That river came out of nowhere!

That's my parent's neighbor's yard.

And that's my parent's house. You would never guess that the basement was totally filled with water. Thankfully the sun came out today and the rain stopped. That definitely helped improve all of our moods. When I got to the house this morning, I was delighted to find that so many things were already dry. All of the pictures that we peeled out of albums and carefully laid out were dry! Yay. And the basement floor was pretty much dry. Fans, dehumidifiers and heaters were getting the job done. The house smells damp and sort of like wet cardboard, but the sun is supposed to be out again tomorrow. Time will tell if the drywall can be saved. I have a feeling it might just need to be ripped out. We already had to ripe out all the carpet. What a mess!

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When I picked up Christian from preschool today I asked his preschool teachers how their houses were. They both live in the same area that my parents do. One of his teachers started crying as she told me about the water that poured into her house out of nowhere. She's lived in her house for 26 years and never had a drop of water in her basement. Her neighbor had a rain gauge that measured 9 inches of rain in less than 24 hours. That's an incredible amount of water and it just didn't have anywhere to go. I have a feeling this is probably just a once in a lifetime kind of flash flood, but try telling that to my dad. He has a major case of buyer's remorse. I think the hardest part of all of this is the emotional toll it's taken on my parents. They are having a rough time. So keep praying for them. They definitely need all the encouragement they could get. But overall I would say that today was a better day. Thanks for all your encouraging comments and prayers.