Dump Fire Flood - In My House

The flood hit our home.  This is a write up on it.  Strength comes from adversity!!!

On Labor Day weekend, I was with my family at the Yuba Dam for a bit of a holiday.  I had told my Wife just that Saturday afternoon how nice it was to be away and how grateful I was that my cell phone had no signal, no on could reach me.   On Saturday evening, we received a call about 8:30 on my wife’s cell phone.  I hesitated to answer it, as I knew we did not want to be bothered.  But as my wife is in the Primary Presidency, I felt like I should answer it, in case it was something important.  Needless to say, the call was very important.

One of my neighbors was calling to let me know that there was a flood in my area and that I needed to get home to check on my home.  I asked him how bad it was, and he could not say.  He said he was working on getting back to my home and would let me know the extent of the damage.  I assumed it was a little bit of water in the basement, thought to have my brother go to my home and open the door, let the water out and then return home after vacation to fix things up.

After that call, and waiting a bit for him to call me back, I started to receive on my phone text messages from family asking if we were OK   I started to see the seriousness of the situation and began to worry.  I then receive a call back from my neighbor that it was pretty bad.  I then decided to leave Yuba, leaving my family there and told my Wife I would be back in a few hours after I checked things out.  On my way home (it took an hour to get home, usually an hour and a half to get home) my phone began to beep with more,  text messages and phone messages that did not go through due to lack of signal.  Each message told me that there was a major flood, that my home was damaged and to get home as fast as I could.

As I arrived home, it was like a war zone.  There were large rocks everywhere, blocking the rock, boulders if you will, the size of 10-12 basketballs in size.  It was devastating.  There were people everywhere working hard to clean the mess.  There were machines and other equipment everywhere clearing roads.  Emergency vehicles as well.

As I arrived to my home, my front and back yards were destroyed.  There was not much there but about a foot of think mud.  As I went to the basement, there was about five feet of water in the basement.  Luckily one window broke open to let the water out.  If that had not happened, this could have been a lot worst for us.  At first I admit I was at a loss and not sure where to start, but a few good friends came by and began to just help.  We broke open the basement door with an ax, no other way to open a door that opens in with that much water behind it.  Once we cracked it open, the water began to flow and even slice open the metal door more with its strength.  After we broke down the door we began to work.  You could see that about three feet of water was gone, but there was still two feet of thick, cement like mud, with large rocks in it.  My first thought was to get it away from the walls, to relieve the pressure.  This was work on hard by trenching, my brother, and three friends were helping us with this effort.  At this time, it was about midnight.

 

So this is when I began to feel really low and lost through what had happened.  I realized that this was more than a “flood”.  This was a major catastrophe and  loss for many families in my neighborhood.  And with this, it was going to affect my family as well.  So for the next hour, five of us dug and trenched and dug.  It was hard work, and at some points, very deflating.  I not only was cleaning mud, but looking at my children’s play room   All of their toys were ruined, but most were gone.  I looked at it as though it was just toys, no big deal.  Then I went to my office that was there and noticed all of my things were destroyed and gone as well.  I-pad, i-touch, computer, LCD monitor, desk, chair, shelves, etc…. I felt like hey it is stuff, I can replace it, then I noticed that much of my sports memorabilia was destroyed.  And then I noticed my mission stuff.  90% of either destroyed or gone.  All of those memories were gone.  Then I realized how important those toys would be to my kids.  It really began to sting, and hurt emotionally.  So at this point, I was tired, discouraged and lost.  These emotions were compounded not only through this fir our family, but also the fire that had happened this summer, we were evacuated and the fire was about 150 yards from our home, and the wind storm from winter that blew out trailer over the back of our yard and destroyed that.  These emotions make one feel alone and quite lost in a large world.  And these were my feeling at this time.

About two in the morning after working so hard on this basement, I began to tell everyone that were looked ok, and let’s call it a night.  Right then my Bishop showed up at my home.  He asked how I was doing and if I needed anything.  I told him that we were about to call it quits, that we would go another 20 minutes and then leave.  He asked if we needed more man power.  I said yes, but that we would only be there for a short bit.  About five minutes later, I heard my name outside the basement.  A brother stood there with about 25 men asking where they can get started.  Reminder, this is now pushing 3AM. I was overflowed with joy and told them what we were doing and we all got to work.  We worked hard until about 5AM.  At that point I said thank you and we all left our separate ways.  I inspected more of the home, talked to my neighbors and then went to bed.

When the Bishop had come earlier, he mentioned to me that the Stake had canceled church for Sunday and that we would all have a  lot of help come in the morning.  Starting at 9 AM.  He told us we would have 20-30 people helping each home.  There were 11 homes hit very hard.  I was grateful for the help.

In the morning, I started working about 7 AM.  Getting organized, digging and just plain trying to figure out how I would get through this.  As I saw the aftermath that morning, I could not believe my eyes.  There are 25 kids on my street, ranging from many ages, but the majority are from age 2-9.  The street behind us that was hit as well, has 15 kids in the same age range.  I could see where the flood had hit, and how large and high it was.  I was grateful that no one was hurt.  In fact, I was told that the night it happened, all of the little children in the street were out playing.  It began to rain and they kids were enjoying the rain, playing in it.  Suddenly there was hail, the size of a half dollar.  It hurt the kids so they all ran into their homes.  About two minutes after the hail begun, the flood hit our street.  Our Heavenly Father blessed us with the hail to protect these children.  If that hail did not come, this would have been much more than a clean-up effort.

As I continued to work, it hit about 9 AM. At that time, there were about 5-6 people that came to my home.  They began to help and we worked hard.  There spirits were high, but the task was so large.  I remember one person saying, “this is going to take forever”.  I was worried, that they would leave, knowing it was a large task.  No matter, I plugged away with the wonderful help I received.

At about 9:15, a brother came by and asked for me.  He said, how many are there helping you?  I told him there were six.  He asked if I needed anything, I said if you have a couple more folks that would be great, but I know others need help to.  He said OK  let me see what I can do and left.  At 9:30, I heard someone call me out of the basement once again.  This time there were twenty people asking what they could do.  I told them and they went to work.  Five minutes later, I had twenty more show and this lasted for the next little bit to where I had at about 10:00 AM, 150 people at my home digging, filling buckets, doing a bucket brigade and sending buckets back in.  It was amazing.  I was so grateful and amazed.  Then I was told that for the rest of the day, every two hours, these number were going to come and relieve the others.  They would come in shifts of two hours.  And to that point, every two hours more would come, but interestingly, only a few would leave.  Most would stay an extra hour to help then leave.  So add the number up, each home, all 11 had over 200 people at their homes helping at all times. 

That afternoon, things begin to wear on you.  I was grateful for the friends that came by and helped me personally.  Helped me sit for a minutes, take me away from all the mess and let the clean-up continue.  After s short lunch break, I went back in to work more.  I saw someone I recognized and asked, what they were doing back here.  He told me he went home, got cleaned up and ate lunch, then returned to help finish the job.  As I looked around over the next 20 minutes, I saw about 30 people that were there from the morning shift, just helping out.

So image the mess, the total destruction this flood caused.  As I spoke to the professional company that came to help, he quoted me that it would cost anywhere between 10-15 thousand dollars to clean up my basement.  And it would have taken him two days easy.  By 7:30 PM that evening, my basement was clear of the main mud, the carpet and pad were out, the sheet-rock and insulation were gone.  All that was left was power washing and deep cleaning.  The time it took this group was amazing.  Many hands made a difficult and seemingly hopeless situation probable.  The stake told me two days later that on Sunday, there were over 5000 people that came to help with the clean-up.

This clean-up continued for another week (in fact, we all still work on it to this day).  It was amazing to see many people take time off from work, using their personal vacation to come and help us.  Businesses took time off to have a team of people come to our aid.  Schools and sports teams left their time form practice and other things to help us clean-up.  It was amazing to see how many came at a time when you felt lost again, they would show and lift our spirit. 

The Monday after the first week, there was a heavy rain storm on its way.  It started to rain in our area, and I admit I was nervous.  Some of my neighbors were very stressed and the solution to prevent this from happening again was quite not yet completed by the city.  I came home from work a bit early.  I stood on my street and talked to one of my neighbors who was hit worst than me.  He was very scared.  I could see the concern in his eyes.  I told him I would get a truck and get more sand bags to protect his home.  He was so grateful.  After I spoke with him, I went to find a truck, I turned to my left and there was President Gardner, from our Stake, in his truck, asking me what needed to be done.  He was dressed in his work cloths (shirt and clacks), but said, let’s go get the sand bags and get to work.  We went together and loaded a truck full of bags.  Upon our return, it began to really rain hard.  We worked together to get the sand bag in place.  The interesting part of this is was after he handed me the first, then the second set of sand bags, all of a sudden two men showed up to help.  Two minutes later two more showed up.  Two minutes later, three more showed up, then all of a sudden we had, within 5 minutes of our return, 50 men helping us put down, grab and deliver more sand bags.  And more were coming.  I was amazed how these people just knew to come, they figured we would need more help with the storm coming.  They just felt our need.

What a blessing this trial is has been and continues to be.  I thank the Lord each day for his tender mercies.  For the things I see and those I don't.  He really knows who I am, and I don't do enough.