Hi everyone. I've been so fried and exhausted I haven't been able to check in at all. Good news: we're actually OVER insured, if that's possible. We've got flood insurance at $200K for the structure and $100K for contents. One little silver lining. I'll take it where I can get it. We're listing and pricing every last thing down to the t-shirts and underwear. If I get .50 for a pair of panties, I'll take it!
Dave and I and the dogs all have diarrhea, likely from having to swim next door in the raw sewage and gasoline in the water. Sewage backed up in our bathtubs and overflowed in the house - along with the rest of the neighborhood. You can imagine the state of our pool...
Yesterday Pastor Burt Palmer from my church (Bear Creek UMC) showed up with a regular armada of volunteers. I am blown away with the hours of hard labor they all did. Got the rest of the carpet pulled out and cleared away enough junk to at least have a pathway through the house, and hit everything accessible with the shop vac as well.
My sister came over and packed up the clean pieces of antique Haviland and early Nippon china I collect. It was a massive job and needed to be done before we could even think about getting the china cabinet out the door. I still have to handwash and pack away a gazillion pieces in the bottom - a job that will take several hours.
The restoration crew showed up at 7:00 p.m. and ripped out the sheetrock and insulation, got the blowers and dehumidifiers going. I am shocked at the amount of water pouring out of those things. I am even more shocked at the rate the electric meter is spinning. These huge dehumidifiers pull so much current they keep blowing breakers right and left. Didn't get to bed until 1:00 am, and back at it at 8:00 this morning.
Got my Mom's car towed finally. The idiot insurance agent told Mom it should be fine and to go ahead and start it. Nope. Water blew out the tailpipe and that was the end of that. He also said that steam cleaning would be fine for the carpet. Uh, hello! There was raw sewage in the water! No way is steam cleaning going to get all that out. The SOB....
My brother-in-law Mike, bless him, took a half day off work and went to town clearing out the entire detached, 3-car garage. He brought along his pressure washer and cleaned the whole floor, moved the extra fridge to the street, and generally was a savior. We can move nothing out of this house without the garage being both clean and cleared out. Now we're mentally gearing up for the major work of photographing and documenting every last little thing. The adjuster is coming tomorrow, thank God. Many people still have not had a lick of work done or even heard from an insurance adjuster yet, so in that we are also blessed.
Keep an eye out in the Houston Chronicle in the next few days. I am being interviewed tomorrow at 10:00 am for a feature on the Bear Creek Flood. I can hardly wait to get into the details of why this area has slowly gone under water for the past 5 years. Everyone I've talked to is ready for a class action suit against Harris County and the Corps of Engineering idiots. The county continues to issue building permits in our watershed (for the tax revenues) and the Corps refuses to dredge the drainways and Addicks Reservoirs - all of which have heavily silted up over the years. Environmentalists have blocked all dredging in the reservoir for an endangered WEED. The Texas Prairie Dawn flower grows only in the reservoir, therefore we must sacrifice people, property and millions of dollars for a weed.
I'll report back as I can. Thanks so much for all the kind words.
