Thanks for the kind messages being sent our way post-flood. We're doing well, and I thought I should put up a newsy update for those who've been emailing for details.
Water coming in through locked, sealed door (ice dammed).
We didn't leave the soggy house on Sunday. We woke to find that pieces of the plaster ceiling in the bathroom had flaked down overnight, and I think we were too overwhelmed and messy and just plain weary—with too much work before us—to manage getting ourselves psychological or physically together for church or any other outing. There also was a 50% chance of more thunderstorms on Sunday, and we were worried that if any rain began to fall, it would be all hands on deck once more (although in the end, no more rain came). In hindsight, leaving the premises would have helped, I'm sure, but we didn't want to face it at the time!
You can sort of make out the staining — attic bedroom
Because Sunday was a heavy, warm, humid, darkish day, nothing aired at all. I put through a few loads of nasty wet towels and such, since I couldn't bear to ignore the mountains of wash, but given the weather they were still basically as wet by bedtime as they'd been when I hung them out to dry hours earlier. Life felt damp and stinky.
Lots of water damage to wood stairs.
But then: The weather turned that night. Monday dawned clear and breezy, chilly even, with no humidity at all. Perfect for throwing open every window and kicking the clean-it-up, air-it-out, wash-it-all, dry-it-through efforts into high gear, hallelujah! I think the washer ran non-stop for the day (well, except for an hour or two in the morning when Jesse and I had our first language class at the local community center and an hour or two in the afternoon when William and I had a brief playdate with a mom and daughter from his class).
Upon walking through town, we could see clearly just how badly the area was devastated by the storm. Gorgeous flower gardens have been reduced to mashed vegetation (our own courtyard has been a mess to begin clearing, and still had pockets of ice up to 48 hours later!). Countless homes, businesses, and buildings were discernibly damaged and/or flooded. The beautiful, 1000-year old church behind us has piles of sand at its feet where the hail blasted the facade for half an hour and chipped away at the ancient, soft stone, doing irreparable harm. So sad. We've learned that the hail was concentrated in a tiny path; our little part of town was at the very heart of the worst of it. People barely 10 minutes away knew nothing of it!
Joined planks splitting
I should be clear there's been lots of good news. First, the clear, dry, breezy weather is forecast for at least a week. Next, I didn't say it in my previous post, but Jesse's and my bedroom was pretty much untouched by water, so we've had an oasis there (just a little staining appeared on the ceiling). Third, the kitchen and living room also have remained fine for living in; there's damage to the living room carpet and to the ceilings, but we've totally been able to work and play in the areas, prepare meals, etc. Fourth, we have a full bathroom in with the laundry off the kitchen, and that area too has been fine to keep using. So...given that hundreds of gallons of water (yes, really) entered the living areas of the house, we feel uncommonly lucky. It's also bizarre that despite the fact that it was like a massive sprinkler system went off in the attic, water pouring everywhere, by some inexplicable miracle the boys' twin beds were two little islands of dry. Baffling, but we're so thankful. Of course we've not had the boys sleeping up there since the storm. We've unplugged everything in the attic except for a single large fan that hasn't been turned off yet. Unfortunately, most of the white paneling is buckled, swollen, stained, and smelly, as are the floorboards. Likely a lot of it will need to be ripped out and redone...
Always nice to see your electrical has been bathed in dirty water...
On the point of repairs, our landlord has been great. A roofer who'd been out to quote on a very small existing roof leak a few weeks ago got her S.O.S. on Saturday evening and has moved up work to this week, tomorrow in fact. The area of the pre-existing leak barely dripped during the storm so does not appear to have been the culprit, by the way! Interestingly, Jesse was up on the roof last week patching some of those small existing gaps, and he popped back up again yesterday (through a narrow skylight on the third floor) to look around. He reports that the roof looks a-okay in general!? Our house is attached to the neighbors', whose roofline is higher than ours and slopes/dumps 100% onto ours. It seems the entire square footage of roof drain-off from next door was coming in along the full join between the two. Roofs are different here; they leave space for air circulation, and we wonder whether that space—which ordinarily couldn't be breeched—was damaged...or lifted...or something...by ice damming perhaps?
As for other repairs, what will happen remains to be seen. Some issues are cosmetic, others are much more important. Nothing moves fast, so we're setting expectations accordingly. It's also the case that many buildings were damaged, so I imagine trades folk will be booked out for months. But for now, we're totally fine, basically dry, very thankful, and back to characteristically optimistic spirits about life in general. :)
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Here's a little video posted by the local news; you can see just how the water and ice was flowing! (Grêle is hail, by the way.)
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