We arrive home, snack, put out a bucket to see how much rain collects, and off to bed. No interest in a shower. Oh wait it is nine o'clock, and now she wants a shower? It is really raining. They fuss. I knock them over the head with a...no, they pass out after letting them know I will be getting them up early in the morning to do homework that wasn't completed.
Wrong! 4:44 am, the phone rings. I am so deep in sleep I am not sure how I got the phone to my ear. The district is calling. My heart is in my throat. Why are they calling at this time in the morning? It must be tragic. School is closed due to flooding warning. What the f#€¥!
I go outside and it is raining, really raining. I crawl into bed freezing cold. I check my iPad, Facebook, MSN..... Zzz.
7:30 on the nose, Daughter dressed for school wakes me from the terribly deep nap. "Can I go finish my homework? I am dressed and my bed is made." Yes, seriously, this task gets done only on school mornings. However, I would give the bed making a C, up from the D- of last year. I tell her there is no school. "why?" She asks.
"I really don't know. The district just called and said all schools were closed." The morning is spent trying to balance kids questions, research on what is going on, touching base with my parents, wondering what state my husband was currently in, and breakfast. Breakfast, yes, the most important meal of the day. You know what, I don't feel like making it, get your own d@#^ bowls. Okay, just thoughts as I sweetly tell them, "Pancakes are not on the menu just because school is cancelled today. Here's your cereal bowls. You know where the rice milk is. Fine, you can watch Johnny Tech. Whatever it is called since school is cancelled." Ah, time to think. The bucket is over flowing, by the way. I mean the bucket outside with rain water.
In a nut shell, the St. Vrain river flooded. Earlier that morning, before the alarming phone call telling me to stay in my home unless otherwise directed by the authorities, Jamestown, in the mountains was hit causing mudslides. One man lost his life as his home collapsed. Lyons, at the base of the foothills and in our school district, was flooded, and it was coming our way.
Well, it was already flowing the ten or so miles we live from Lyons. By the time I figured out what was going on, finished breakfast, button up rain coats, and walked over to the "sled hill" above the Dry Creek, it was not so dry. Guess I won't be doing the run I was planning. The water level was not quite to the foot bridge. The kids are nervous.
Getting home, the kids each call all their friends in the neighborhood to see if they could play. Better entertained kids then worried kids. We pick up one gal and drive around to see the flooding on the bike under pass on the secondary road between the schools. The small pond in the new park is becoming a lake. The path is blocked off with its gate. Sometimes it floods under there. Yes, in the spring with mountain snow run off. This is fall, it is supposed to be mostly dry, ergo the name.
A sweet young man joins us and the four of them, two second grade boys an two fourth grade girls, rummage through the house for entertainment and end up in the garage. This worked out as a win, win solution. I got some time in my studio and a swept out garage. And, they had shelter with outside access for quick dares to run out in the rain. I think they were playing house or vetinary hospital. Hard to tell.
Time melted quickly. After a quick load of wet clothes in the drier, the boy went home. Son and the girls were fed whatever I can scrounge up. I am exhausted from all the thinking and trying to get news without a TV. We drive girlfriend home. We know the flooding is really bad by now. On the way back, its dusk, we stop at the Sled Hill. The flooding is over the footbridge. Kids are nervous. They climb up on my bed after getting their teeth brushed. They watch a video on my laptop. I work on my studio that I had rearranged and had planned to finish organizing so I could start a new painting.
Some where in my lost time of Thursday I get a call from the district that they will close on Friday too. I find out friend in Lyons is on a "hill" and okay but the rest of the town evacuated. Bridges are out. Homes are lost. This is bad. This is a One Humdred Year flood that is over due since 1870 something was the last one. The phone rings.
It is the city this time. We are on evacuation notice. It is getting dark. I am confused what to do. I see neighbors out in the street. We confirm. Stay put. It is better then trying to drive somewhere as the flood has cut the city in two and effecting towns out east, south and the Thompson is flooding the cities up north. Call or come over if you need help. But, it is all okay, we aren't considered flood zone on the map we looked at when we bought our house, right? And, the "sled hill" is at least two stories tall above the creek that has necome a river. We are good. I don't sleep. Messaging other mom friends worried all night. Worried about so and so. Did you hear from them? So and so is evacuated and okay at their friends house. Should we leave? It is curfew, we are okay up here....right?
Four hours sleep at the most. It's Friday. Kids half joking and half freaked out taunt about being off school another day. Oh, just wait when they realize Fall Festival, soccer, and all that is cancelled. Oh, and they can't go anywhere and school is closed until next Thursday. Shoot, if I'd only known, I would have booked a trip for this impromptu fall break.
Now, I do make light of the situation. But, do know I lost complete track of time Friday in a daze of survivors guilt. Here I was, my little corner of Longmont on our high ground, here we are dry. After lunch, the kids go play at a friends house. The sun is out, and I take a little walk. The water receded a bit. There is an impromptu lake created by sewer over flow. People a cut ally let their kids and dogs swim in this brown water. Yuck.
I take a little me time on the covered front porch. My brain is not acting great with lack of sleep and stress. I can't think straight. Meditation and the aromatherapy of my lavendar and cedar bark settle my nerves enough to go up and take a shower. I feel guilty using my water. I rationalize that my only job is to take care of my children. And, I can't do that if my brain is so out of whack that I can barely see. That's okay, right? Put on your air mask first when the plane is crashing or you can't help those in need.
I feed the kids when they get home. They aren't too hungry. Neither am I. My stomach is upset. Collitis acting up with all this stress. Phone rings, evacuation order is lifted. Husband gets home from the airport. The National Guard is in town. We are classified as a National Disatser. I sleep, sort of.
Today is like any ol' day of summer. It is a bit rainy and a bit sunny. Kids are needy. I idealize an image of working in my studio while kids do their own crafts. Yet, I succumb to teaching both to sew on my old machine. Two quilts, one with puppies and the other for a baby girl who is due to arrive in February. Time fades in and out as I accept the four days of painting I had planned are shrunk to an hour here or there maybe nowhere. It is okay. We have our house. We have electricity, water and food. Everyone I know is safe, even if displaced.
And, that is what it is like being one of the lucky ones. My second disaster. One being the 1989 Loma Preeta 8.5 earthquake that collapsed the Bay Bridge. Just like our home here, my parents bought a house on bedrock in a good school district. they did thin in spite of the further commute for my dad to work. We were safe, sort of. Dad got home after several anxious hours. We slept together on couch cusions in the living room for over a week as we endured aftershocks, dry bread and emergency water. And, we only lost a few colliectibles while gainimg a few cracks in the ceiling.
Yes, I say we are lucky as a new storm lingers in our forecast. Love and charity to all in the Front Range. Check out this arial footage.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lZBw_vkJb98&sns=fb&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DlZBw_vkJb98%26sns%3Dfb
PS Wednesday was 9/11. I want to acknowledge that date and all the losses in the aftermath. And, lastly, we survived another Friday the Thirteenth, isn't that awesom?!
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