The Flood

A week after we got the office open, and we were hoping for some CALMER days, our life got a tiny bit more hectic.

At about 6:30 on a Tuesday night, I was getting dinner ready, Brinley was screaming at me in typical Brinley fashion for want of food. I was beginning to think that if Russ did not walk through our door soon, I might lose it, or Brinley might, I'm not sure which. :) One of those days. Then I heard a knock at the door. I thought, Oh good! Russ is home! But I opened the door and it was the poor man that lives upstairs, reporting that one of his bathroom pipes had just broken and his place was flooding and we might start seeing some water come down--he was trying to get a hold of maintenance to turn off the water, but because it was after hours, his calls were being sent to a third party emergency answering service which could only page our maintenance crew. So I said OK and didn't really give it much thought. Afterall, who could really think about anything with Brin YELLING like she was, and surely the water would get turned off in a few minutes.

5 minutes later Russ walked through the door, Hooray! That six'o'clock celebration never gets old. Then Kenzie noticed there was some water coming down in her bathroom. Oh ya! So I gave Russ the run down from what the guy said upstairs. He goes out and finds out, the water is still on, and no one has been able to talk to anyone from management yet. I notice the water is dripping in the bathroom, doorway, and by the girls bedroom door now. (within 15-20 minutes).



Fast forward 2 HOURS...the water is STILL ON, and by now its a full on RAINSTORM IN OUR HOUSE!! What the??? Where is maintenance??? Where is Management?? We've called the city, the fire dept (our fire alarms were going off for a good hour, 911...nobody can turn off our water. The water was leaking through any little hole, fire alarms, light fixtures, light switches, so it messed with all the wiring and turned off half our electricity.

Now..rewind a little bit. About 30 minutes into this Kenzie was stripping down to her swimsuit, pulling out her umbrella and rainboots and running crazy. We called sweet Aunt Laurie to come pick her up ASAP. :) We called some friends for some tarps and boxes, who made some calls and brought in the forces to come help us move our stuff out. And we CAN'T THANK THEM ENOUGH!!! My friend took Brinley for the night, (although she didn't know it at the time,) with no change of clothes, no diapers or wipes, or food, or instructions.....Bless her heart! So by about 7:30(roughly) the 11 year old scout leaders and scout troop, who ironically had been at the church having an emergency preparedness lesson, came to help us move everything out. Other ward members and neighbors which we had never met came too and I was frankly OVERWHELMED at the generosity of others and their willingness to help. Really, moved to tears. I didn't even care that the scouts were slip'n'sliding in the living room.

The water was finally turned off around 8:45pm. We got all of our big and important stuff out of our house around 9-10 ish??...kind of lost track of time throughout this. Then Management finally showed up and apologizes profusely, and then tells us that people were coming to rip up the carpet the same night and we had to have EVERYTHING OUT! What? Nobody told me I was moving today!! I haven't had time to de-clutter and do all the pre-moving stuff, aka get rid of my junk that nobody is supposed to see!! aaahhh..!! Oh well, it was no time to be prideful I guess. Anyway...we left our apartment--completely empty--at midnight, threw away the dinner that had been left on the oven all night, and headed to Bryan and Laurie's for the night. We stayed there for a few nights and then in a hotel for a few nights before getting into a new apartment a week later! WHOA. So here's some more pics.

There were all these weird water bubbles on the walls.




12 hours later...it looked like this...

12 hours after that the sheet rock was torn down too. so fun.