Earlier this year my wife and I bought our first house. We spent a good part of this summer renovating it. Three weeks after moving in Irene paid us a visit. In 1996 our area suffered a 100 year flood, Irene made that look like a trickle. This is the result.
There was a lot of furniture in storage in the garage at the time.
A lot of brand new stuff that we bought for the new house like the snow blower and lawn mower.
Two week old TV, she died so young.
Took a while to get the water out of the basement.
Boiler and water heater were brand new.
Fridge went for a ride.
My son's room.
The DSD's were in the basement which was fully submerged.
Thankfully it takes more than a little mud to hurt them. Wish the rest of the house cleaned up so easy.
Stage one was getting the contents out and as much mud as possible.
Then the demo started. Here's what our house looks like now.
Here's all our hardwood floors, waiting for the insurance adjuster to come and verify what we had before it goes to the curb.
Obviously the important thing is that my wife and I got out fine along with our son. Insurance should cover the house and most of the appliances. We are going to eat it on the contents though. Our entire village looks like this, and we are just one village of many that flooded. As bad as it was for us though it could have been worse. One house around the corner from us burned during the flood, and two towns down from us there is a road that has nothing left on it but 20 foundations, the houses are just gone. Further up the valley the historic Blenheim covered bridge was completely washed away, it was the longest single span covered bridge in the world, and now my son will never see it except in pictures.
Despite all the losses, what has really struck me is the outpouring of support from friends, family, and complete strangers. Last Sunday there were about twenty people at my house helping out, I could only tell you the names of less then half of them. Most were volunteers I had never met before in my life. It is because of all that support that I can confidently say we will rebuild; not just our house but also our village, our valley, our community.
