out to dry

The river has receded and we were able to go downtown for breakfast this morning. J's office is still closed, but he was able to pick up his laptop and has been hiding in MY office and catching up :) The HVAC system at his building is out, and the security guards told him that if he didn't check out in 20 minuted they were going in after him - and they weren't kidding. He said it was incredibly hot and humid in the building, he was sweating when he came out to the car.

Yesterday we tried to go downtown, but the river was still way too high - we saw a few cars brave the water, but we weren't foolish enough to try it. I did take some pictures, but they don't look like much unless you know what the area looked like before the river rose.

What I really wanted to see was our old house. It was downtown, just a few blocks from J's office, and the news crews had been filming from nearby. That house was not in a flood plane, I am sure no one had flood insurance. We passed by the house today and the curb was full of soaked items. We recognized a few of the things as an old workbench from the basement, and some old cabinets that were hanging above the workbench. Then there were a lot of wet boxes, but no carpeting because we ripped it all out and fixed the wood floors when we lived there. The street looked like Sanford and Son had moved in. J and I couldn't stop talking about what we would be dealing with if he wasn't transferred a few years ago, I'm sure we would have still been in that house.

Nothing else has been going on. We've been contacting local friends to see if anyone needs any help. We helped some neighbors disinfect toys that were in the basement and J helped carry some wet carpet and padding out to the curb. That's the extent of damage we've seen in our neighborhood and among our friends.