Jaci

I have always thought that I was a nice person. Not a perfect person. Not the prettiest or the smartest. But nice. I don’t hold grudges and try my best not to judge. I don’t care about your color, religion, sex or background.

I spent a good part of today thinking not nice things about perfect strangers.  That bothers me a lot. I thought, and still do, that I had a legit reason for being upset. Now that the day is done I am really bummed out that I let it get to me.

If you have been reading my blog you know that we have been having a battle with the Mississippi River. We lost. Our community is under a lot of water.

We live in a small town with more small towns around us. There is one main road that goes right down the middle of these towns. We live on that road.  It’s just a two lane highway but it is the life line of the area.  As soon as you pass our house the road is closed. Flooded. Now this, as you can imagine, is a real inconvenience to all of us.  On a normal non flooded day I can make a left out of my driveway and in a little less than a mile can be at our local gas station/mini store. Now, for you to go to the same gas station you have to make a right and drive a little more than 7 miles, if you don’t mind gravel roads. If you are like my husband and hate the flying rocks and dust, you can take a paved route of a little less than 13 miles.

The road has been closed for a couple of days. You have to drive around 3 different barricades to get to my house.  A lot of city people have been coming down to see the water. They ease around the barricades and slowly drive down to where the water is. They stop and take pictures.  Asking us if we are ok and tisk tisking the awful fate of the towns folk.  Now the locals are a different matter. They aint gonna let no puddle of water slow them down. They come barreling around the barricade and come flying down the road. I’m sure most of them think that they can just drive through it. Well when they get down here and see that the “puddle” is several feet deep and probably at least a 1/4 mile long they whip into my driveway and turn around. Now first let me say that I don’t usually mind people turning around in my drive. BUT here’s the problem. For one, there is, right next to me a business with a nice big parking lot and double drive that they could easily turn around in.  Then they would have to drive another 10 feet or so and I guess they figure why bother when I also have a nice big circle drive.  Some of them are even nice enough to slow down first. My real issue was the people who didn’t even bother with the drive way but just pulled right up into the yard and turned around in my grass!!! So for a couple of hours this afternoon I was not a happy camper. I just stood out side and glared at people who where driving like idiots and dared another one to drive in my grass. I wanted to park our cars out at the end on my drive and block off both sides so people couldn’t turn around in it at all but hubby wouldn’t let me.  My son the cop, and his friend happen to come by and I was ranting a raving about the people and what was going on. As my son walked outside we saw a truck had parked in my yard. The man was PEEING in my yard!! I was livid. My 10 yr old daughter had just gone into the house thank goodness.  My son walked over to the guy and told him he was on private property and had to leave. They guy said he was just turning around. (in my grass??) My son says “looks to me like you were peeing.” They guy says well I had to go. My son whips open his badge and says “would you like to do it again?” LOL It almost made the whole thing worth it. hehehehe the guy jumps into his truck appoligizing all over hisself. I’m leaving I’m leaving.  My son was grinning like an idiot when he turned back around to us.

So now that the day is done and i’m sitting here.  Calm. I do think that I got madder than I should have. So maybe i’m not as nice as I thought.  Or maybe I am. I didn’t put the nails in the drive way that I wanted to.

Well our levee finally broke. It is not a surprise they have been working on it like crazy trying to keep it patched but we all knew it was probably not going to hold. The water has not reached us yet. We are over 3 miles from the river so it will take a little bit of time to get here. They have lowered the prediction of how high the water will get. We should be ok with the new levels. It will close the roads around us and we might get some in the basement. Hubby is staying here to make sure the pumps are working. Not sure what the kids and I will do. I’m torn between staying here and making it an adventure and bugging out to my sisters. If we stay here we will have to stay here till its over. The roads will flood and we won’t be able to get out.  We should not lose electricity or anything and we have plenty of food and water.  The kids have been wanting to go to Aunt Gees house since this whole thing started almost 2 weeks ago. They may mutiny if I say we are staying here.

On the up side I feel justified now that we built our fort. We were starting to feel a little foolish for going to such extremes.

Some of you have been worried about us and seeing stuff on the news. Just wanted to let every one know that we are fine and not in any kind of danger.

My sons Nick, Drew, & Alex, Nicks girl friend Amanda, Heather, Nate, Brad, Tony & Chris, Drew & Amanda, Eric, Zack, Matt, Chris, Luke, Dustin H, Dustin T, Jake, Mark, Chris, Lora, Debbie, Kim, Georgia, Anita, Lindsey, Rachel, Lindsy and yet another Amanda and My daughter Katie. Countless others who have called to see what we need or who have called to say that they have already taken care of things for us.

On sunday my husband was trying to figure out if we should sandbag our house. We did not even know where to get sand or bags to do it. On sunday night a friend called and said “I’ve been worried about you and I have arranged for someone to bring you sand and here is where you go to get bags.”

On monday we were working our selfs to death trying to get everything out of our basement. All of a sudden there was Nate my sons friend. He jumped in and worked well into the night. Tuesday morning the sand man came and we were standing in the yard wondering how in the heck we were going to get 1500 bags filled and placed around our house fast enough. Here comes Nate with Brad. My sons Nick and Drew made a couple of calls and all of a sudden my yard was filled with young men. The young men listed above and some of the woman worked very hard here filling and placing sand bags around our house. All day long people came and went some worked until they had to leave for work others came as they got off of work. When they raised the prediction and we thought the main floor was going to get flooded my husbands nephew showed up with a 20ft. enclosed trailer from his work. A couple of the young men started moving all the furniture out of my house and into the trailer. The ladys were busy inside packing things in boxes. When we realized that we were going to have trouble getting the trailer moved from our house to my SILs my sons girlfriend made a call and walla! Here comes a man with a truck big enough to get the job done. At every turn I have been over whelmed with the people and support we have received.

Last night right down the road a levee broke and washed a couple of houses off their foundations and down the river. The Army Corps of Engineers have been working on “our” levee 24/7 trying to get it strong enough and tall enough to keep the water out.

As I sit here writing this Nate has just walked in the door. Ready to help again. He actually apologized because he didn’t come yesterday. This is a remarkable young man. He is married with two kids, he needs a better job. I wish I had some connections. I know how hard he worked here for free. I think he would be a great asset to anyone who gave him a chance.

My friend just called, they have lowered the prediction. It now looks like there is a chance we won’t get the water after all. I don’t know how to feel now. Relief for sure I mean we  don’t want our home to flood. Also feeling very foolish that we have done all of this and a great amount of guilt. A lot of people have gone to a lot of trouble for us this week. All of this might not have even been necessary.  A lot of things could still go wrong. The levee could break or they could get the rain that we missed last night. Not out of the woods yet. Now we wait.

I hate waiting.

No doudt about it. It’s going to flood. At this point it looks like we will have to move out of our house on wednesday. We are still not sure how bad it’s going to be or how best to prepare for the wonderous event. We are also not sure where we are going to be sleeping come wednesday night. My husband and I each have two sisters. All of whom have offered their basements for us to use. The problem is that none of them really have the room for all of us. Kevin thinks we will be out of our home for at least 3 weeks. We really hate putting anyone out for that long. I really just wish we could find a house or apartment somewhere we could just rent for a month. We just don’t have the time to figure out where or how to find one. People just don’t really rent out houses by the month unless they are on the beach in some wonderful vacation destination.

Thanks to all who have sent well wishes and prayers. I will continue to update as I can.

We live about 40 miles from St. Louis Mo. In 1993 we had a major flood. We don’t live by the river but because it was so bad we got flooded anyway. we were out of our house for months. This morning my husband woke me up to tell me that they are predicting that the water is going to be almost to ‘93 levels by next week-end. That means as soon as we get home tomorrow we will have to start getting everything out of our basement. And will have to find someplace to stay. At this moment I really feel a little overwhelmed. don’t even know where to start. At this point we are hoping that the main floor of the house will be dry but only time will tell.

I find myself putting off writing in here. I keep telling myself I’m going to write about this or that. Then I sit down and stare at this blank little box. So much to say but really when I start to write it down it all seems so unimportant. Not today. Today it is very important.

My son…my little boy…the same one who use to hide behind my leg and fall asleep on my lap every afternoon. My second born child is no longer a child. He has been hired to start a new job next week. He is very excited. This has been the job he has wanted for as long as I can remember. He has gone to school for it, trained for it, and now here it is. He is as ready as he can be. “I” am not ready. I’m trying to be ready. I want to be ready. I thought that I had prepared myself. I knew it was coming. I even prayed for it to come. Now that its here, I don’t think I am ready. Now that I think about it I don’t think I will ever be ready. He is 23 yrs old. It no longer matters if I am ready. He is ready. So starting on Monday June 16th. My son will get dressed for his dream job. As he is sworn in he will be given a badge and a gun. He will never again leave the house with out strapping a gun to his belt. He is at a friends house now telling them all about the “goodies” he got today. But on his bed beside his shiny new duty belt with the holders for his gun, handcuffs, pepper spray, baton etc. there next to all those things looking very innocent is his new bullet proof vest. That, more than anything else causes my heart to pound and my eyes to blur.