Sandy - part 1

This post I wrote about a week ago.  
I have to do it in 2 parts, because...though we now have power and our house smells relatively normal, we are still without a functioning basement....  Ugh.  It's been 2 weeks and 1 day.  

So, here's part 1:
Hurricane Sandy hit October 29, 2012.
Well, I actually think she got stripped of the title of "hurricane" but still...it was (and still is in a lot of places) a hot mess.
Last Saturday I started watching the news with regards to where the hurricane will hit, who will be most affected, and what to do.  I went out shopping and got a few essentials.
Then Sunday hit, and for whatever reason a weird sort of panic set in.
I can't say I'm truly scared of much myself...but I am always fearful of things that could potentially harm my children. 
My mind kept jolting back to that minor tremor we felt from the earthquake back in 2011.
Can't remeber the exact date, or where it hit initially, but I do remember how scared Cale was - he came running up from our downstairs basement yelling how he felt the house shake.  Shake it did.  And while I was fairly startled, my 4 year old was petrified.
I kept picturing his little face, and then the faces of all my other children being scared in a storm. 
Then one starts picturing the worst...
There are trees surrounding our property - ones directly by Shepherds room...what if they got knocked down and fell on the house above his room?!
Would my boys all cry when they heard the power of the storm?
As a generous wife, I shared my concerns with my husband who then started his panic mode.
I went out shopping again - but on the Sunday night before the storm - aisles were cleared!  I managed to scrounge up some water, bread, canned goods, and extra flashlights...
Monday it rained. 
Both Tim and I agreed...not so bad...maybe that'd be it?  We could deal with that.
The power went out for about an hour or 2 earlier in the day, but eh...that was nothin.
But it was not over.  It only just began.
Monday night around 9pm our power went out. 
Our sum pump stopped...and within minutes, our basement started to flood.
Going downstairs to assess the damage I had the thought of just bringing up everything we could to save it.  But...our storage/laundry room is PACKED!
It took us a good 3 hours to get all that we could upstairs.  The things I couldn't help him move would have to stay and be replaced if damaged permanently.
Good friends of ours braved the terrible storm to try to give us a generator, but ended up not being able to get TO us - too many power lines and trees down everywhere. 
We were trapped.

(just a little peek of the destruction Sandy did around our place...)

 That night was a tough one.  Cale was up many many times and woke up Thad and Megersa too. 
The temperature dropped dramatically and I was really sorry I didn't bundle the kids up before bed.
We woke up to a basement flooded about 6 inches and some grouchy kids. 
No power means no heat, electricity or water.
...and WHY does everyone have to poop in the AM?  Uck.
Thinking smartly, I had Tim fill the tub with water that we'd just use for flushing.  Good thought, right?
Well, somehow it got drained. 
But...like I said, there was a mini-pool in our basement - so we filled buckets for flushing.
A friend of ours came over early in the morning to see what he could do.  At that point - really nothing, because we had no power or any way of getting the water out of the basement...but he was a super nice guy and got our kids some McDonalds for lunch!
Around lunchtime another friend and his son brought over a generator and helped begin the process of getting the water out of the basement.  The generator was strong enough to power the fridge and the sum-pump, so our food was okay (for the time).
He and his wife offered to take our kids for the day - but we decided it'd be best to keep the twins with us, and just sent the boys over. 
After naptime, we decided we couldn't keep the kids in the cold, cramped house for what seemed to be an endless amount of time...so we took up the offer to stay at the Krops house.
They had power, and 3 extra bedrooms.  The twins know Miss Wendy, so they were happy as clams to be there.  And there we stayed until Friday evening. 
Thank goodness for them.
Tim stayed at the house that first night (yep - in the 40 degree weather) to keep refilling the gas generator. 
And then it broke.

What about our landlords, you say?

We don't technically have landlords.  We are renting a parsonage, but the church hired a management company who are no good perhaps did not see the urgency of our need.  We got a hold of a flood management company to come and make an assessment, but just as they knocked on the door, Tim said that the church called and requested we wait for them to get someone to take a look.  Understandable, but highly annoying.  We still wait for the assessment.
It's suppose to happen tomorrow...........  I'll keep you posted.
We did lose some furniture.  Nothing worth much, bookshelves, entertainement units...  Hopefully we can find some good stuff for free on Craigslist or from friends who were getting rid of stuff.
I'm not terribly worried about that.  I just want that MOLD SMELL GONE!!
Oh, it's not pretty.
We keep the dehumidifiers running now that we have power, but it's not doing anything for the smell.
The flooring is a very outdated linoleum and the walls are wood paneling (are you picturing something sophistaced and beautiful? ;)) so I would really just like them to take it all out and replace it.  ...really would LIKE them to, and really THINK they should.  Two of the doors are warped too, so those definitely need replacing. 
But we shall see.
God is in control...and while the storm was hitting us on Monday night, I couldn't help but thinking - I'm so glad that we can pray to God.  So many people have fear without hope.  And that's gotta feel AWEFUL!! 
Cale was off on Tuesday and Wednesday, but had to go to school on Thursday and Friday - so Tim was running back and forth (the Krops live about 30+ min away from us) to pick him up/drop him off.  The church didn't have power either so he was spending some quality time at Barnes and Noble trying to get some work stuff accomplished too.  And all the while harrassing calling the appropriate people to please come and get things back to normal.
I love him so very much.

The 3 littles and I spent some quality time with Miss Wendy...we even spent Halloween there.  It was so great to spend time with them! 

 

I do know it's terrible that we didn't have our camera, and were only able to get these 2 pics from Wendy...but I promise to dress the other 2 up again and snap a pic.

When we got home I worked tirelessly for a few hours to clean the terrible smelling bathrooms, mop up the dirty floors, and rearrange our basement stuff so that we were still able to maneuver around upstairs and have some places to play.  I managed to get quite a bit accomplished, so it is feeling less crowded and dirty, which I appreciate.
 And that's where we stand right now...waiting.
I suppose I'll just have to keep you posted....fun, no?