Tuesday September 11th we woke up to a rainy cloudy day, I had class and Alex had work. Before I left to class Alex walked in the door, he ended up getting off work super early because they can't do much of anything while it is raining at a golf course! After class it was still pretty rainy outside and when I got home Alex and I made some seriously amazing soup and cookies, and I was REALLY excited it was still rainy because on rainy days, I don't have to work at the car wash! I was so thrilled about the fact that we would get one whole day {not including Sunday's} to be together! I decided I was going to take pictures all day, this really never happens and I was giddy as could be.
As we were making lunch my mom called and told us the Little League Baseball Fields were filling up to the top of the fence with water and we should go for a drive to see it if we weren't busy doing anything. We decided to go check it out and since I was documenting our day, camera came too, and boy am I glad now!
The water had been up to the yellow lining of the fence, little did we know that the dike had already broken, and the water was quickly draining.
We drove over to the upper baseball fields and saw a whole bunch of people looking over Santa Clara which we thought was pretty weird, so we decided to go check it out! We drove over and got out of the car when we saw my uncle Travis. He said that Sue and the girls had just been evacuated. The police walked in and said you have thirty seconds to get out of your house. All they had time to do was grab the dog and hop in the car. I can't even imagine what all these people were thinking as they were told they had thirty seconds to get out of their homes. Alex and I walked over to the dike where we saw the water just flowing right through it. I walked across that thing every single day on my way home from middle school, and I never had any idea that it was a dam I just figured it was a nice little walkway for us to get home from school each day. I think I felt the most sad when I saw the water hit sweet little dutchmans market. I was happy that it was withstanding the rush of the water until the doors gave way and the water started rushing in. My aunt Mary Dawn and her family had been evacuated as well and she asked me and Alex to drive around for a bit and see if we could tell if the water was headed toward her house. After the water ran its course my dad got a call from my aunt Mary Dawn saying the water had broken through their basement windows and the basement had been flooded. Alex, my dad, and my brothers changed and hopped in the truck to go help try and save their basement until they were told no vehicles could be driven down there. Lucky for us my dad was allowed to drive his new Razor down there and it made him pretty excited to have it and use it for something so good. Once the boys got down there they called and let us know that we were needed down there. We changed and drove the four wheeler right down! I have never seen so many charitable people respond so quickly to such a disaster. It was amazing to see all of the volunteers some friends, some strangers, so willing to help.
By the end of the night we were all pretty exhausted {and really pretty muddy}, but I was so happy to be there helping and it was amazing to see all of the people who dropped everything they were doing to come and help. I am so grateful to have such a close knit family we all live so close and everyone was so willing to help, it was incredible. It wasn't really the day I was planning, but it was great none the less!
Tori those pictures were incredible, I didn't quite understand the damage that was done, but now I can see!I never knew that that walk way was a dam either, I totally thought it was just a nice trail for the students to use too as a short cut, ha! Hope your families are all okay, my heart goes out to all those who's houses were effected in Santa Clara
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