I finally heard from Mom today. What a relief! It was a very emotional conversation. They have access to a phone now so we should be getting daily updates.
Everything is as bad as it sounded last night. The house is a complete disaster and is no longer habitable. The pressure of eight feet of water caused all of the first-floor windows to break. The furniture all sloshed to one corner of the house, beds, clothing and shoes are mostly so coated with mud that they aren't usable. Amazingly the dishes and a lot of the kitchen stuff are fine, just in need of a good washing. It appears all our photo albums have been lost and all of the books are beyond saving. The cat found high-ground upstairs and along with my wedding dress and a few other things, survived harm.
Looting has already started to plague some parts of the Valley, so Mom and Dad are at the house today trying to clear silt away from the driveway so they can get a vehicle in there to fish out valuables and move them to a safe place.
Dad's station seems to be OK. Someone was able to put up a lot of stuff before the flooding and only an inch of water covered the floor. The adjacent AMR rental building appears to be OK, too.
The current plan is to stay in the trailer until they can clean up their rental house across the street enough to live there temporarily--it still has windows intact and no duct work underneath the house, so utilities service would be possible after much cleaning. Ultimately Mom and Dad will start fresh with new property and home elsewhere. That's still far from their minds, though.
The general tone is one of utter shock. Everyone knows the Chehalis floods from time to time, but this was beyond the scope of our imaginations. It came so hard, so fast with little warning. Some neighbors invested $100,000 to raise and renovate their home after the 1990 flood, thinking they would be well out of the flood plain. They also have lost their home.
Praise God for neighbors, friends, volunteers and the surrounding hillsides for protection and aid.
I'll continue to update the blog daily
Wow, Danielle. I'm relieved to hear your parents are OK, but it's simply unbelievable to think of the mess. My thoughts are with your family and neighbors and friends.
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