My House Flooded

Blog Post 3: Today Our House Flooded...

To say it was a surprise is an understatement.

It hadn't rained like this in nearly 30 years in our area. The last time I remember rainfall like this, I was a 14-year-old riding around with my parents, surveying the damage and thinking it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to our sleepy little town.

Twenty-eight years later, I sat watching water slowly creep into our living room, and all I could think was how defeating it felt.

The night before, I barely slept. Maybe three hours, if I was lucky, before our cat woke me with an urgent chorus of meows. Once I finally got him settled down, I couldn't fall back asleep. Then came the first clap of thunder.

By 4:15 a.m., the rain was coming down in sheets, and my phone blared with the first of many emergency alerts.

Tornado Warning.

Not a watch. Not a "conditions are favorable." A warning.

Somewhere nearby, the atmosphere had decided today was the day to try and spin itself into a funnel cloud. Forty-five minutes later, another alert confirmed a tornado had touched down about 25 miles east of us. My blood pressure finally eased, and I managed to steal another hour of sleep.

Or so I thought.

My bossy Aussie bestie had other plans.

He started whining nonstop. I figured he probably wanted to go visit his favorite little boy's tree, but it was still pouring outside, so I petted him and tried to ignore it.

Nope.

Something deep inside me—that little homeowner instinct—was screaming, Get up.

The backyard is always the first place that floods, so that's where I headed.

I'm glad I trusted my gut.

When I opened the back door, the water was already at the edge of our concrete slab... only about four feet away.

For perspective, our backyard is roughly 50 by 75 feet. Overnight, it had become a 3,750-square-foot swimming pool, and that pool was slowly making its way toward the house.

I ran to the front door.

Water was already inside the office.

I woke everyone up—much calmer than I expected, honestly—and we immediately shifted into damage-control mode. We moved everything we could off the floor, put our flood guards around the doors, and started trying to stay ahead of the water.

By 8:00 a.m., my husband and my closet had two inches of standing water.

Our bedroom had about an inch.

Half of the office was underwater.

It all happened so fast.

What amazed me most wasn't the water.

It was my girls.

They handled it with far more maturity than I ever would have at their age. They understood what we stood to lose, and without complaining, they got to work right alongside us.

At one point, while they were bailing water out of the office, I jokingly asked Alexa to play "Hoist the Colors." What I didn't realize was that a little fish my husband had 3D-printed for me years ago had floated into the room and was bobbing around beside them.

Sometimes you just have to laugh.

After hours of soaking up water, wringing out towels, bailing, barricading doors, and trying to save what we could, we all looked at each other and said the same thing.

"We need naps."

So... we took them.

Two and a half hours later, my husband got up to check the damage.

Every room was dry.

Not mostly dry.

Bone dry.

The only wet things left in the house were the towels we'd used.

We were stunned.

As the floodwater outside receded, so did the water inside. The fans had done exactly what we'd prayed they would do. We had been mentally preparing ourselves for hours of shop-vacuuming, hauling heavy, soaked towels, and wondering what hidden damage we'd find.

Instead, we picked up the wet towels, started a load of laundry, and finally let ourselves breathe.

Then my dad showed up.

He had been evacuated.

That shook me.

His home has been in our family for more than 75 years, and the thought of losing it made my stomach turn.

We hugged.

We prayed.

My husband threw a roast into the oven—one I'd been meaning to cook but simply didn't have the energy for. The girls popped in a DVD, and somehow, while the world outside seemed to be falling apart, we all piled into the living room together.

We watched movies.

We played Uno.

We laughed.

It felt as though God Himself had said, "Enough for today. Just be together."

And we were.

That night, as my husband and I finally climbed into bed, I could still hear my daughters and my dad in the other room.

They were laughing so hard they kept having to shush each other before bursting into laughter all over again.

I just smiled.

Outside, the rain was still pounding.

My body ached.

The fans sounded like jet engines as they continued drying the floors.

But I smiled anyway.

Because I realized something.

Those are the same kinds of memories my grandparents gave me.

During hard times, they somehow made room for card games, laughter, snacks, and togetherness. They taught us that while you can't always control the storm, you can decide what fills your home while it's raging outside.

Now my dad was giving those same memories to my girls.

My mom may have passed away 17 years ago, but my dad has loved these two babies enough for both of them.

And my dad's house?

It survived.

Minimal damage.

Funny how, in the middle of one of the hardest days we've had in a long time, what I'll remember most isn't the water.

It'll be the laughter.

Because when everything else feels uncertain, God and family have a way of reminding you what really stays afloat